C..J 

o 


LIBRARY 


University  of  California. 


Gl  FT    OF 


'sA^-'^-^./v- «C. .C-Xv^. 

Class  IT  ^ 

H  Uir. 

K  ?.7 


.d.Cs^C:!  .^ 


1905 


Zbc  Tnnipersitp  of  Cbicago 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN   D.    ROCKEFELLER 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF 

RITSCHL 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTY    OF    THE    DIVINITY    SCHOOL 

IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF   PHILOSOPHY 

(department    OF    SYSTEMATIC    THEOLOGY) 


BY 


W.  C.  KEIRSTEAD 


CHICAGO 
1905 


TLbc  laniverstts  of  Cbicago 

FOUNDED   BY  JOHN   D.    ROCKEFELLER 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF 

RITSCHL 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO    THE    FACULTY    OF    THE    DIVINITY    SCHOOL 

IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(department    OF    SYSTEMATIC    THEOLOGY) 


BY 

W.  C.  KEIRSTEAD 


■y^' 


. ^,M  'rOjiy;^'^ 


V 

METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL 


W.  C.  KEIRSTEAD 
Rockford,  111. 


In  his  little  book,  Theologie  und  Metaphysik,^  Ritschl  claims  that 
every  theologian  is  as  a  scientific  man  "under  the  duty  or  necessity 
to  proceed  according  to  a  determined  theory  of  knowledge  of  which 
he  must  be  conscious  and  which  he  must  be  prepared  to  justify" 
(§  5,  p.  66).  As  a  scientific  theologian,  Ritschl  claims  (§  4,  p.  57)  that 
he  follows  a  definite  theory  of  knowledge,  and  that  it  is  just  because 
he  rejects  the  traditional  and  Platonic  theory  of  knowledge,  which 
his  opponents  hold,  that  they  are  unable  to  understand  him.  This 
is  the  reason  why  he  places  value  in  things  which  they  omit,  and 
neglects  matters  which  they  regard  as  essential.  "A  Christianity 
which  is  expounded  by  a  scholastic  ontology  and  mystical  psychology 
is  unintelligible  and  neo-Platonic,"^  while  by  his  own  method  "a 
practical  and  intelligible  Christianity  is  set  forth."  "The  principles 
of  logic,  psychology,  and  epistemology  constitute  the  ratio  or  intel- 
lectus  necessary  to  comprehend  revelation."  Indeed,  although 
Christianity  as  a  religion  is  indifferent  to  any  theory  of  knowledge, 
yet  the  latter  is  so  important  for  theology  that  the  whole  strife  between 
him  and  his  opponents  is,  in  Ritschl's  opinion,  a  strife  over  a  correct 
theory  of  knowledge. 

Since  Ritschl  assumes  such  importance  for  a  theory  of  knowledge, 
it  is  necessary  to  understand  both  his  conception  of  epistemology  in 
general  and  its  function  in  theology.  In  order  to  define  a  theory  of 
knowledge,  we  must  understand  his  conception  of  metaphysics. 
"For  a  theory  of  knowledge  here  intended  is  identical  with  the 

»  Last  edition  published  with  Die  christliche  VolUkommenheit  (Gottingen,  1902); 
referred  to  in  this  essay  by  the  abbreviation  TM. 

=  Ritschl,  A  Critical  History  of  the  Christian  Doctrine  of  Justification  and  Recon- 
ciliation (English  translation  by  H.  R.  MacKintosh),  Vol.  Ill,  p.  23;  referred  to  in 
this  essay  as  JR. 

677 


u>^ 


00 


678  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

doctrine  of  the  thing  or  things  which  forms  the  first  part  of  meta- 
physics" {TM,  p.  32).  "Metaphysics  deals  with  the  universal 
ground  of  all  being.  It  abstracts  from  the  peculiar  nature  of  natural 
and  spiritual  magnitudes  in  order  to  get  the  conception  of  a  thing 
which  is  common  to  both"  {JR,  p.  16).  Metaphysical  knowledge 
is  therefore  a  priori  knowledge.  Metaphysics  may  be  divided  into 
two  parts.  The  first  part  is  ontology,  or  the  doctrine  of  things.  It 
presents 

the  forms  arising  in  the  intelligible  spirit  of  man  in  which  it  proceeds  in  general 
to  fix  the  objects  of  representation  above  the  currents  of  sensation  and  perception. 
Thus  metaphysical  conceptions  include  and  regulate  all  other  acts  of  knowledge 
which  involve  the  specific  peculiarity  of  nature  and  spirit.  They  explain  how  it 
is  that  the  human  mind,  having  had  experimentally  perceptions  of  different 
kinds,  differentiates  them  in  consequence  into  natural  things  and  spiritual  beings. 
But  it  does  not  follow  from  the  position  of  metaphysics  as  superordinate  to 
experimental  knowledge  that  metaphysical  conceptions  give  us  a  more  profound 
and  valuable  knowledge  of  spiritual  existence  than  can  be  gained  from  psychology 
and  ethics.  Compared  with  psychology  and  ethics,  metaphysics  yields  only 
elementary  and  merely  formal  knowledge  {TM,  p.  32;  JR,  p.  16).  A  theory  of 
things  is  employed  formally  in  theology  as  settling  the  objects  of  knowledge,  and 
defining  the  relations  between  the  multiplicity  of  their  qualities  and  the  unity 
of  their  existence.  The  rules,  which  it  is  possible  to  set  up  here,  form  the  con- 
ditions of  experience  by  means  of  which  the  specific  nature  of  things  is  to  be 
recognized  {JR,  p.  18). 

In  addition  to  ontology,  metaphysics  includes  cosmology.  In 
cosmology  "the  manifold  of  the  perceived  and  presented  things  is 
ordered  to  the  unity  of  a  world,  whether  the  world  be  conceived  as 
limitless  or  as  a  whole"  {TM,  p.  33).  This,  too,  is  a  priori  knowl- 
edge, and  deals  with  the  pure  forms  rather  than  with  the  experi- 
mentally given.  It  presents  those  general  forms  of  intuition,  such 
as  space  and  time,  in  which  external  nature  is  arranged.  But  cos- 
mology takes  no  account  of  the  difference  between  nature  and  spirit, 
and  its  knowledge  is  also  elementar)'^  and  superficial.  In  fact,  it 
applies  the  results  of  ontology  to  the  realm  of  nature ;  so  that  ontology 
is  the  most  important  part  of  metaphysics. 

From  this  we  see  that  for  Ritschl  a  theory  of  knowledge  is  identified 
with  ontology,  and  since  this  is  the  chief  part  of  metaphysics,  Ritschl 
virtually  equates  a  theory  of  knowledge  and  metaphysics.  For  this 
reason  Ritschl  denies  the  charge  that  he  rules  metaphysics  out  of 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL       679 

theology.  "The  question  is,"  he  says,  " what  metaphysics  one  will 
accept."  He  rules  a  false  metaphysics  out  of  theology,  but  he  is 
enabled  to  do  this  by  a  true  theory  of  knowledge,  or  because  he 
recognizes  the  sphere  and  limitations  of  metaphysics. 

Moreover,  since  for  Ritschl  a  theory  of  knowledge  is  equated  with 
ontology,  the  criticisms  of  Stahlin^  and  Pfenningsdorf,'*  that  Ritschl 
in  his  emphasis  on  a  theory  of  knowledge  is  opposed  by  Lotzc,  must, 
at  least,  be  modified.  Lotze  does  object  to  the  method  of  beginning 
the  study  of  metaphysics  by  a  preliminary  critique  of  reason.  It  is 
not  by  tracing  the  genesis  of  our  notions  that  we  decide  concerning 
their  meaning  and  value.  "The  psychological  origin  of  knowledge, 
and  the  play  of  conditions  which  co-operate  in  producing  it,  is  the 
most  obscure  of  all  questions."^  Moreover,  for  Lotze's  teleological 
view  of  reality  "the  process  of  cognition  is  itself  a  part  of  existence,"*^ 
and,  indeed,  a  most  important  part.  "The  investigation  into  what 
our  perceiving  soul  contributes  to  the  excitations  which  move  it — 
that  is,  a  critique  of  reason — does  not  require  to  precede  metaphysics, 
but  is  a  part  of  it."  But  Lotze  does  lay  emphasis  on  ontology,  and 
this  is  what  Ritschl  defines  as  a  theory  of  knowledge.  It  is  true  that 
Ritschl  does  not  give  a  clear  statement  of  Lotze's  position,  and  that 
he  is  influenced  by  Kant;  nevertheless,  his  theory  of  knowledge 
follows  closely  the  ontology  of  Lotze.  He  lays  more  stress  than 
Lotze  upon  the  genesis  of  the  concept,  and  does  not  always  differ- 
entiate this  from  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  concept.  But 
it  is  evidently  not  his  purpose  to  make  a  preliminary  study  of  the 
powers  of  the  mind  in  order  thereby  to  fix  the  limits  of  knowledge. 

The  same  question  arises  again  when  one  asks  what  is  the  char- 
acter of  metaphysical  knowledge.  At  first  sight  one  is  inclined  to  say 
that  Ritschl  accepts  the  Kantian  position.  Ontology  and  cosmology 
are  names  for  Kant's  forms  of  perception  and  the  categories  of  the 
understanding.  "  Metaphysics  presents  the  forms  arising  in  the  spirit 
of  man,  in  which  it  proceeds  in  general  to  fiux  the  objects  of  representa- 
tion above  the  flow  of  sensations  and  conceptions"  {TM,  p.  2)Z)  •    Meta- 

3  Kant,  Lotze  and  Ritschl  (English  translation). 

4  Dogmatisches  System  von  Lepsius  und  Ritschl. 
s  Introductiofi  to  Metaphysics,  Vol.  I,  §  ix. 

6  Erdmann,  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  III. 


68o  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

physical  knowledge  is  formal  and  a  priori.  It  is  worthless  for  theology. 
One  is  inclined  to  say  that  the  problem  of  metaphysics  is  surrendered, 
and  in  place  of  it  we  have  an  analysis  of  the  human  mind.  We  dis- 
cover the  forms  of  perception  and  deduce  the  categories  of  the  under- 
standing. Knowledge,  then,  is  limited  to  phenomena.  An  attempt 
to  form  a  metaphysics  results  from  the  illegitimate  use  of  the  forms 
and  ideals  of  the  understanding  and  reason  beyond  the  data  of  sense. 
Real  knowledge  is  in  the  natural  sciences.  Theology  is  a  special 
science,  gets  its  material  through  historical  revelation,  and  is  limited 
to  phenomena.  There  is  much  in  Ritschl  to  suggest  this  interpreta- 
tion, and  he  has  been  so  understood;  but  a  more  careful  study  of 
him  will  prove  that  it  is  incorrect.  For  Ritschl  says  that  metaphysics 
does  give  us  real  knowledge.  It  is  superficial  and  elementary  knowl- 
edge ;  it  is  not  valuable  knowledge ;  but  it  is  knowledge  of  things. 
It  tells  us  the  nature  of  the  ground  of  all  being.  And  since  it  does 
give  this  universal  ground  of  being,  it  does  not  take  into  consideration 
the  difference  between  nature  and  spirit. 

Metaphysical  concepts  are  elementary  knowledge  in  which  one  fixes  the 
objects  of  knowledge  as  such,  that  is,  as  things  in  general,  in  their  unity  and 
further  in  their  general  relation  to  each  other.  For  this  reason  spiritual  mag- 
nitudes are  only  superficially  and  imperfectly  known  in  metaphysics,  and  not  in 
their  characteristic  reality   {TM,  p.  56). 

And  the  doctrine  of  God  affords  a  place  where  a  metaphysical  idea 
is  presented  directly  as  theological.  "The  remaining  propositions  of 
theology,"  says  Ritschl  {TM,  p.  40),  "are  of  such  a  specifically 
spiritual  (geistiger)  character  that  metaphysics  comes  into  considera- 
tion only  as  the  formal  rule  for  the  knowledge  of  religious  magnitudes 
or  relations."  Then,  too,  the  so-called  proofs  for  the  existence  of 
God  fail,  because  they  cannot  rise  above  the  world-ground,  they 
cannot  prove  the  spirituality  of  God.  All  this  seems  to  show  that, 
while  Ritschl's  form  of  statement  is  Kantian,  his  position  is  rather 
that  of  Lotze.  He  has  not  in  mind  the  difference  between  form  and 
content  which  Kant  makes  so  fundamental.  He  follows  Lotze  in 
that  he  begins  with  our  notions  of  things,  and  accepts  the  conclusion 
of  Lotze.  Ontology  with  Ritschl,  as  with  Lotze,  gives  elementary 
knowledge  of  things;  it  even  leads  to  a  unitary  world-ground. 
Ritschl  concedes  thus  much  to  metaphysics,  and  for  this  reason  the 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  KITSCH L        68i 

doctrine  of  God  is  the  only  theological  proposition  which  comes  in 
contact  with  metaphysical  knowledge.  Ritschl,'  however,  claims  to 
limit  his  agreement  with  Lotze's  metaphysics  to  ontology. 

Lotze  admits  that  metaphysics  "will  only  be  able  to  unfold  ideal 
forms  to  which  the  relation  between  everything  real  must  conform."^ 
In  ontology  "we  seek  a  definition  of  thingness."^  "We  deal  with  a 
discovery  of  the  universal  formal  predicates  which  must  appertain 
to  all  that  (whatever  else  it  may  be)  which  is  called  thing,  or  which 
appears  in  actuality  as  a  subject  of  relations."  Lotze  starts  from 
the  general  notions  of  a  thing,  and  seeks  to  purify  these  in  such  a 
way  as  to  attain  a  consistent  and  contradictionless  concept.  As  a 
^result,  he  reaches  certain  universal  and  necessary  forms  or  categories 
of  thought.  But  Lotze  would  reject  Kant's  method  of  the  deduction 
of  the  categories.  The  content  of  sensation  is  as  subjective  as  the 
forms  of  thought,  and  the  validity  of  knowledge  has  to  be  determined 
on  other  grounds  than  from  the  analysis  of  the  process  of  cognition. 
Lotze  simply  defines  thingness  in  such  a  way  as  to  have  a  consistent 
conception,  and,  as  Mertz  says: 

The  assumption  that  these  modified  notions  thus  gained  have  an  objective 
meaning,  and  that  they  somehow  correspond  to  the  real  order  of  the  existing 
world,  which  of  course  they  can  never  actually  describe,  depends  on  the  general 
confidence  we  have  in  our  reasoning  powers,  and  in  the  significance  of  the  world 
in  which  we  ourselves,  with  all  the  necessary  courses  of  our  thought,  have  a 
place  assigned  to  them  in  harmony  with  the  whole.  ^° 

If  it  be  said  that  Lotze's  method  is  an  illegitimate  abstraction  of  the 
universal  element  from  its  content  in  concrete  experience,  and  the 
final  positing  of  this  as  an  absolute  to  account  for  experience,  then 
this,  if  correct,  is  a  criticism  upon  Lotze's  ontology  which  Ritschl 
accepts,  and  possibly  upon  idealism  in  general. 

Ritschl's  critics  point  out  that  he  cannot  accept  the  ontology  of 
Lotze,  since  the  latter  reaches  a  unitary  spiritual  world-ground  in 
which  things  are  conceived  as  spiritual  entities,  while  Ritschl  claims 
that  metaphysics  does  not  do  justice  to  spiritual  magnitudes,  because 

7  See  Ecke,  Theologische  Schule  Ritcshl's,  p.  50. 

8  Metaphysics,  Vol.  II,  §  vi. 

9  Outlines  of  Metaphysics,  §  15. 

"  Mertz,  Encyclopadia  Britannica,  art.  "Lotze." 


682  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

it  does  not  take  into  consideration  the  difference  between  nature  and 
spirit.  But  there  is  no  disagreement  here;  for  Lotze  says  that 
ontology  has  not  to  deal  with  values. 

Nature  and  spirit  are  two  regions  so  different  at  first  sight  as  to  admit  of  no 
comparison,  and  demanding  two  separate  modes  of  treatment,  each  devoted  to 
the  essential  character  by  which  the  two  regions  are  alike  self-involved  and 
separate  from  each  other.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  destined  to  such 
constant  action  upon  each  other  as  parts  of  one  universe  that  they  constrain  us 
at  the  same  time  to  the  quest  for  those  universal  forms  of  an  order  of  things  which 
they  both  have  to  satisfy  alike  in  themselves  and  in  their  connection  with  each 
other." 

Metaphysics,  Lotze  tells  us  at  the  close  of  his  ontology,  "might  accept 
a  thoroughgoing  determinism  in  which  all  that  happens  would  be 
the  inevitable  and  blindly  necessitated  result  of  all  that  has  previously 
happened."'''  Such  a  view  appears  "incredible  and  preposterous" 
only  "when  estimated  according  to  its  significance  and  value."  The 
world-substance  for  Lotze  is  by  no  means  the  God  of  religion.  Mertz 
remarks  that  Lotze  would  probably  claim  that 

the  empty  notion  of  an  absolute  can  only  become  living  and  significant  to  us  in 
the  same  degree  as  experience  and  thought  have  taught  us  to  realize  the  serious- 
ness of  life,  the  significance  of  creation,  the  value  of  the  beautiful  and  the  good, 
and  the  supreme  worth  of  personal  holiness.  To  endow  the  universal  substance 
with  moral  attributes,  to  maintain  it  is  more  than  the  metaphysical  ground  of 
anything,  to  say  it  is  the  perfect  realization  of  the  holy,  beautiful,  and  good  can 
only  have  a  meaning  for  him  who  feels  within  himself  what  real,  not  imaginary, 
values  are  clothed  in  these  expressions.  ^^ 

Schiller, ''•  in  his  criticism  of  Lotze's  monism,  says  that  Lotze  never 
bridges  the  chasm  between  his  metaphysical  world-ground  and  the 
God  of  religion.  In  his  religious  philosophy  Lotze  presupposses  only 
the  religious  conceptions  as  historically  given  problems  of  religious 
philosophy.  It  is  not  possible  from  his  world-unity  to  extract  any 
of  the  divine  attributes. 

Ritschl  claims  to  accept  Lotze's  ontology,  and  his  own  brief  state- 
ments concerning  the  nature  of  metaphysics  agree  with  this  claim. 
Metaphysical  knowledge  then  gives  us  an  elementary  knowledge 
of  things,  but  it  does  not  deal  with  values,  and  so  makes  no  difference 
between  nature  and  spirit. 

II  Metaphysics,  Vol.  I,  §  xiii.  "  Outlines  of  Metaphysics,  §  75. 

13  Encyclopcedia  Britannica.  '4  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  V,  pp.  225-45. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL       683 

If,  then,  metaphysics  gives  only  elementary  knowledge,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  define  its  relation  to  theology.  Metaphysics  does  not 
even  give  valuable  knowledge  of  things.  If  we  want  that,  we  turn 
to  the  natural  sciences.  It  is  even  more  impotent  in  the  realm  of 
spirit.  Metaphysics  deals  only  with  that  which  is  common  to  nature 
and  spirit  alike.  Religious  knowledge  depends  entirely  upon  that 
which  is  peculiar  to  spirit  alone.  "The  religious  world- view  rests 
entirely  on  the  fact  that  the  spirit  differentiates  itself  in  worth  from  the 
phenomena  surrounding  it  and  the  effects  of  nature  forcing  them- 
selves upon  it"  {TM,  p.  2,z)-  Metaphysical  knowledge  is  worthless 
for  theology.  Why,  then,  is  a  theory  of  knowledge  so  valuable  for  the 
theologian  ?  Because  it  has  a  formal,  regulative,  and  critical  function 
in  theology.  If  one  has  the  correct  conception  of  metaphysics,  he 
will  not  seek  in  its  knowledge  and  by  its  methods  to  attain  the  content 
of  theology.  All  the  so-called  proofs  for  the  existence  of  God,  and 
all  speculations  concerning  the  pre-existence  of  Christ  and  original 
sin,  result  from  the  use  of  a  false  theory  of  knowledge.  These  proofs 
can  never  rise  above  the  world-unity;  they  cannot  give  the  person- 
ality of  God.  "The  use  of  metaphysics  must  be  forbidden  in  theology, 
if  the  latter's  proper  and  positive  character  is  to  be  maintained" 
{JR,  p.  17).  A  theory  of  knowledge  can  be  used  critically  by  a 
theologian  as  a  weapon  against  speculative  metaphysics  and  natural 
theology.  The  content  of  theology  is  absolutely  excluded  from  the 
elementary  and  general  knowledge  of  metaphysics. 

But  Ritschl's  opponents  would  understand  by  metaphysics,  to 
use  his  own  words,  "not  that  elementary  knowledge  of  things  in 
general  which  ignores  their  division  into  nature  and  spirit,  but  such 
a  universal  theory  as  shall  be  at  once  elementary  and  the  final  and 
exhaustive  science  of  all  particular  orders  of  existence"  {JR,  p.  16). 
This  is  why  they  mingle  metaphysical  knowledge  with  revelation. 
Thus  an  alien  content  is  mingled  with  the  knowledge  of  the  historical 
revelation  because  of  a  false  concept  of  metaphysics.  But  this  in 
turn  is  the  result  of  the  overestimation  of  the  speculative  method. 
This  method  fails  to  realize  that  the  concepts  and  laws  of  human 
thought  are  methodological,  and  give  but  a  partial  and  imperfect 
knowledge  of  reality.  It  is  not  for  us  in  our  thinking  to  follow  the 
very  laws  that  the  Creator  himself  must  have  employed  in  creation. 


684  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

A  theory  of  knowledge  then  corrects  this  presumptive  method.  We 
cannot  deduce  all  from  an  idea.  We  must  know  objects  in  their 
relation  to  us.  In  so  far  as  the  finiteness  of  knowledge  makes  objects 
phenomenal,  then  all  objects  are  phenomena. 

If  God  belongs  as  an  object  of  knowledge  to  scientific  theology,  then  there 
is  no  satisfying  ground  for  any  claim  that  one  could  know  something  of  God  in 
himself,  which  would  be  unknown  to  us  apart  from  the  revelation  which  is  some- 
how created  by  him,  but  felt  and  perceived  by  us  {TM,  p.  59). 

We  know  things  in  their  relation  to  ourselves.  For  this  reason  we 
cannot  know  a  passive  soul  behind  and  apart  from  all  conscious 
action;  we  cannot  speculate  about  the  eternal  pre-existent  union  of 
Christ  with  God,  or  the  metaphysical  attributes  of  God.  The  false 
method  did  not  take  into  consideration  the  relation  of  the  object  to 
consciousness.  "They  want  the  objective  bearing  of  doctrine  and 
not  the  interpretation  of  them  as  reflected  in  the  subject.  But  we 
observe  and  explain  even  the  objects  of  sense-perception,  not  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  but  as  we  perceive  them"  {JR,  p.  34). 

Wenley's  criticism  of  Ritschl^^  jg  not  just;  for  Ritschl  never  claims 
with  Kant  that  in  knowledge  acquired  through  the  senses  we  know 
phenomena,  while  in  the  moral  and  religious  realm  we  deal  with 
things  in  themselves.  For  Kant  the  practical  reason  does  not  give 
knowledge  at  all.  We  postulate  God,  freedom,  and  immortality, 
but  we  have  no  knowledge  of  them.  We  know  that  they  are,  but  not 
what  they  are.  It  is  because  we  have  no  knowledge  of  them  that 
they  are  not  phenomena.  For  Ritschl  real  knowledge  of  God  is 
given  in  his  historical  revelation;  but  this,  like  all  our  knowledge, 
is  the  knowledge  of  a  finite  being,  and  so  is  partial  and  imperfect. 
Ecke's  statement  is  more  just  to  Ritschl  when  he  affirms  that  the 
latter  makes  no  difference  between  the  objects  of  natural  and  spiritual 
knowledge  in  the  matter  of  their  knowableness ;  and  this,  he  thinks, 
shows  clearly  that  both  the  existence  and  the  possibility  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  objects  was  for  Ritschl  an  undoubted  fact.'*^  Wegener,  who 
charged  Ritschl  with  subjectivity,  says  that  Ritschl  makes  no  differ- 
ence between  the  supersensual  objects  and  those  of  sense-perception. 
Both  appear  under  the  same  limitations.^ ^ 

15  Contemporary  Theology  and  Theism,  pp.  82-124. 

^6  Theologische  Schule  Ritschl' s,  p.  48. 

^1  JahrhUcher  jiir  protestantische  Theologie,  1884. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL       685 

Ritschl  then  identifies  a  theory  of  knowledge  with  ontology.  He 
admits  that  ontology  gives  a  general  and  elementary  knowledge  of 
things.  But  this  knowledge  has  no  place  in  theology,  for  the  latter 
is  confined  to  the  value  of  the  spirit.  Then  again  the  method  of 
metaphysics  is  a  priori.  But  this  speculative  method  cannot  give 
us  valuable  knowledge.  The  method  of  theology  must  be  inductive, 
not  deductive;  historical,  not  speculative;  scientific,  and  not  meta- 
physical. 

II 

Ritschl  finds  three  theories  of  knowledge  prevalent  in  his  age. 
The  one  he  accepts  is  a  mean  between  the  other  two,  and  avoids  the 
mistake  of  each.  The  first  view  claims  to  know  "  things-in-them- 
selves."  It  ignores  the  limitations  of  human  knowledge.  The  other 
is  agnostic  and  denies  all  knowledge  of  reality.  The  one  which  he 
accepts  affirms,  he  thinks,  a  partial,  but  real,  knowledge  of  reality. 
"We  know  the  thing  in  its  appearance." 

The  first  theory  of  knowledge  is  due  to  the  stimulus  received  from 
Plato,  and  found  a  home  in  the  realm  of  scholasticism.  "According 
to  this  view,  the  thing  works  upon  us  by  means  of  its  mutable  qualities, 
arousing  our  sensations  and  ideas ;  but  it  really  is  at  rest  behind  the 
qualities  as  a  permanent  self-equivalent  unity  of  attributes"  (JR, 
pp.  18, 19,  20).  This  conception  of  a  thing  is  carried  over  into  scholastic 
psychology.  "It  is  assumed  that  behind  specific  activities  of  feeling, 
willing,  and  thinking,  the  soul  remains  at  rest  in  self-equivalence  as 
the  unity  of  its  diverse  powers."  And  it  is  with  this  metaphysical 
passive  soul  that  a  metaphysical  passive  Deity  enters  into  union. 

Ritschl  points  out  the  contradictions  involved  in  this  view:  (i) 
The  thing  or  soul  is  passive  and  at  rest,  and  yet  it  must  be  active, 
since  it  is  the  cause  of  qualities.  (2)  A  temporal  and  spatial  sepa- 
ration is  made  between  the  thing  or  soul  at  rest  and  the  qualities 
which  appear.  Thus  the  thing  is  so  severed  from  its  qualities  and 
the  soul  from  its  functions  that  it  is  not  possible  to  view  them  as 
cause  and  effect.  (3)  Such  a  passive  soul  or  thing  would  be  absolutely 
unknowable  for  us. 

In  his  Theologie  und  Metaphysik  (§  4,  pp.  59  ff.)  Ritschl  seeks  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  this  theory.     He  says,  in  substance,  that 


686  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

the  guarantee  for  the  reality  of  the  thing  is  to  be  found  in  the  sensa 
tions  which  it  excites  in  us.  Yet  sensations  often  deceive  us.  In 
any  interpretation  of  sensation,  at  least,  there  may  be  illusions.  We 
seek  to  avoid  this  by  subsequent  and  more  careful  observation. 
Then  the  common  view  makes  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  by 
repeated  presentations  and  more  exact  observation  we  can  know 
things  as  they  are  in  themselves.  We  have  the  image  as  first  per- 
ceived, in  which  there  is  illusion,  and  then  we  have  the  perception 
as  purified  by  renewed  presentation  and  observation;  and  the  com- 
mon view  regards  the  first  image  as  a  thing  in  relation  to  us,  and  the 
latter  as  the  thing-in-itself ;  i.  e.,  the  thing  as  it  is  apart  from  relation 
to  any  consciousness.  It  is  assumed  that  all  illusion  arises  from  the 
relation  of  things  to  us,  and  that,  when  we  know  things  in  themselves, 
there  can  be  no  illusion.  But  if  there  is  always  illusion  (Schein)  in 
the  relation  of  things  to  us,  then  there  is  no  possible  way  to  detect 
and  measure  the  illusion.  For  we  find  out  illusion  by  comparing 
our  conceptions  with  those  of  others,  or  by  repeated  observations. 
But  we  can  never  contrast  the  object  as  related  to  us  with  the  object 
apart  from  all  relations  to  our  consciousness.  "We  are  not  able  to 
separate  from  the  relation  of  things  in  general  the  necessary  and 
unfailing  relations  to  us  as  the  subjects  of  sensations,  perceptions, 
and  ideas."  An  object  apart  from  all  relations  to  us  would  be  abso- 
lutely unknowable.  It  is  non-existent  for  us.  We,  then,  know  things 
in  their  relation  to  us  and  to  one  another.  And  the  fact  that  we  so 
know  them  is  no  discredit  to  our  knowledge.  But  we  know  objects 
as  related  to  a  finite  consciousness:  our  knowledge  is  limited.  The 
vulgar  view  that  we  know  things-in-themselves  is  incorrect.  It  is 
incorrect  because  things  apart  from  all  relation  to  us  are  absolutely 
unknowable  for  us,  and  it  is  mere  dogmatic  assumption  to  say  that 
they  exist  at  all.  Then  it  is  incorrect  to  say  that  objects  are  related 
to  us  as  they  are  to  a  perfect  consciousness.  We  know  things  as  they 
are  for  us. 

The  second  mistake  of  the  vulgar  view  of  things  arises  from 
taking  "the  mere  stationary  memory-image  of  repeated  intuitions 
and  effects  by  which  our  sensations  and  perceptions  have  been  stimu- 
lated all  along  within  one  definite  place"  for  the  thing-in-itself. 
This,  however,  comes  about  as  follows:    When  we  have  repeated 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL       687 

perceptions  of  the  same  thing  under  different  conditions,  there  are 
certain  qualities  which  are  present  in  every  presentation.  These 
qualities  get  a  certain  stability  and  clearness,  and  by  a  process  of 
involuntary  abstraction  we  form  them  into  a  mental  image  of  the 
thing.  Moreover,  we  have  a  feeling  of  the  value  of  this  image, 
inasmuch  as  it  guides,  shortens,  and  makes  easier  renewed  observation. 
We  were  originally  assured  of  the  reality  of  an  object  by  its  changing 
affection,  by  the  sensations  which  it  excites  in  us.  And  the  memory- 
image,  because  of  the  feeling  of  its  value,  is  put  on  a  par  with  the 
experience  which  originally  guaranteed  the  reality  of  the  thing. 
Because  of  the  permanency  and  clearness  of  the  memory-image  in 
comparison  with  immediate  experience,  the  mistake  is  easily  made  of 
ascribing  to  it  the  reality.  The  memory-image  becomes  the  thing 
in  itself,  and  is  placed  in  a  plane  immediately  behind  the  appearing 
thing.  It  is  made  the  real  cause  of  the  sensations.  There  thus  arises 
the  contradiction  already  referred  to.  This  is  the  psychological 
explanation  of  the  scholastic  thing-in-itself.  The  claim  to  know 
things-in-themselves  turns  out  to  be  a  deception  of  the  memory- 
image. 

This  is  probably  the  psychological  explanation  of  Plato's  doctrine 
of  ideas.  Plato  universalizes  memory-images.  For  Plato's  idea  is 
but  the  class-concept  which  is  formed  by  abstracting  the  common 
qualities  of  the  individuals  of  a  species;  then  Plato  ascribed  true 
reality  to  this  concept.  The  things  of  sense-perception  are  supposed 
to  exist  and  to  be  real  in  so  far  as  they  participate  in  the  idea.  The 
individual  things  are,  as  it  were,  shadowy  images  of  the  idea.  These 
ideas  exist  in  an  intelligible  world,  and  can  be  known  by  thought 
alone.  Plato  tries  to  think  things-in-themselves,  apart  from  their 
individual  appearances  to  us;  yet  at  the  same  time  he  has  to  make 
some  sort  of  causal  connection  between  the  two.  The  very  opposite 
of  Plato  is  the  truth.  It  is  not  the  class-concept,  but  the  individual, 
which  is  real.  The  more  universal  the  concept,  the  paler,  more 
fluctuating,  and  more  undetermined  it  is;  and  when  it  is  purified 
from  these  defects  and  is  brought  out  in  clear  outline,  it  is  the  con- 
cept of  an  individual  thing. 

Frank  is  guilty  of  some  such  fallacy  when  he  talks  of  the  absolute. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  substance  in  general.     Frank's  absolute  is 


688  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

an  abstraction ;  Lotze  would  call  it  "pure  being."  Since  you  cannot 
get  a  substance  behind  matter,  Frank's  concept  of  the  absolute  is 
materialistic.  What  Frank  gives  us,  says  Ritschl,  as  the  absolute 
or  thing-in-itself,  is  really  an  imperfect  concept  of  a  thing.  This  is 
Hegel's  criticism  of  Kant's  things-in-themselves.  The  absolute, 
Ritschl  affirms,  is  the  unrelated.  Strictly  speaking,  this  has  no 
meaning.  For  if  we  speak  of  an  object  as  absolutely  unrelated,  both 
to  other  objects  and  to  our  sense  and  intelligence,  we  are  talking 
nonsense;  for  such  an  object  is  inaccessible  to  us.  But  Frank  does 
not  do  this.  He  takes  an  imperfect  concept  of  a  thing — a  concept 
that  is  stripped  of  all  special  qualities,  of  all  its  relations  to  other 
things  and  to  our  sense-perception;  and  he  has  left  an  abstraction, 
a  purely  formal  concept,  Kant's  unity  of  apperception;  and,  of  course, 
such  an  abstraction  cannot  give  us  real  knowledge  of  reality.  Yet 
this  is  the  deception  which  Frank  practices  upon  himself  when  he 
talks  of  his  absolute.  It  is  akin  to  the  scholastic  mistake  of  hypos- 
tasizing  the  memory-image.  For  a  memory-image  is  virtually  identi- 
fied with  a  formal  concept,  since  each  has  lost  the  special  qualities  of 
a  concrete  thing. 

The  whole  process  of  thinking  "pure  being"  or  "things-in- 
themselves,"  meaning  by  that  the  unrelated,  and  then  somehow 
attaching  qualities  to  them  in  an  accidental  manner,  is  unclear  and 
contradictory.  The  individual  apple  which  we  eat  is  the  real  apple, 
and  the  man  in  the  direction  of  his  will  and  in  the  harmony  of  his 
feeling  of  self,  whom  we  learn  to  know,  is  he  himself.  Behind  this 
we  do  not  have  to  bring  into  consideration  a  more  characteristic  or 
real  being  of  man  to  understand  him.  And  the  real  God  is  the  one 
who  has  revealed  himself  to  us  in  historical  revelation,  and  not  the 
undifferentiated,  undetermined,  and  limitless  being  which  is  attained 
by  metaphysical  speculation. 

The  second  form  of  the  theory  of  knowledge  we  owe -to  Kant.  He  limits 
the  knowledge  of  the  understanding  to  the  world  of  phenomena,  but  declares 
unknowable  the  thing  or  things-in-themselves,  though  their  interdependent 
changes  are  the  ground  of  the  changes  in  the  world  of  phenomena.  The  latter 
part  of  the  statement  contains  a  true  criticism  of  the  scholastic  interpretation  of 
a  "thing."  The  first  part,  however,  is  too  near  the  scholastic  theory  to  avoid  its 
errors.  For  a  world  of  phenomena  can  be  posited  as  the  object  of  knowledge 
only  if  we  suppose  that  something  real — to  wit,  the  thing — appears  to  us  or  is  the 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  KITSCH L       689 

cause  of  our  sensations  and  perceptions.  Otherwise  the  phenomenon  can  only 
be  treated  as  illusion.  Thus  by  his  use  of  the  conception  of  phenomenon  Kant 
contradicts  his  own  principle  that  real  things  are  unknowable  (JR,  p.  19). 

Ritschl's  criticism  of  Kant  is  that  he  virtually  accepts  the  scho- 
lastic conception  and  valuation  of  the  thing-in-itself.  He  shows 
very  correctly  that  the  thing-in-itself  is  so  separated  from  its  appear- 
ances that  a  knowledge  of  it  is  impossible.  Kant  thus  exposes  the 
fallacy  of  the  scholastic  knowledge  of  the  thing-in-itself.  But  he  is 
to  be  censured  in  that  this  very  fact  did  not  lead  him  to  give  up  such 
a  conception  of  things.  It  is  because  he  himself  retains  a  scholastic 
conception  that  he  denies  a  knowledge  of  reality;  but  in  order  to 
save  knowledge  from  being  mere  illusion,  he  implies  that  appearance 
is  an  appearance  of  reality. 

This  leads  Ritschl  (JR,  pp.  19,  20)  to  state  his  own  position,  which 
is  that  of  Lotze,  and  it  involves  such  a  conception  of  things-in-them- 
selves,  or  of  things,  that  we  may  have  a  real,  though  partial,  knowl- 
edge of  them.  Ritschl  rejects  the  scholastic  conception,  which 
defines  a  thing  as  the  unrelated.  The  opposite  is  true.  Things  are 
in  relation,  and  appearance  is  the  knowledge  of  reality.  "In  the 
phenomena,  which  in  a  definite  space  exhibit  changes  to  a  limited 
extent  and  in  a  definite  order,  we  cognize  the  thing  as  the  cause  of  its 
qualities  acting  upon  us,  as  the  end  which  they  serve  as  means,  and 
as  the  law  of  their  constant  change."  In  his  Theologie  und  Meta- 
physik  (§  4,  pp.  63  f.),  after  showing  the  psychological  origin  of  the 
conception  of  a  thing,  like  Lotze,  he  starts  from  the  ordinary  concep- 
tion of  a  thing  to  get  a  clear  and  consistent  conception. 

In  the  elementary  stage  of  the  formation  of  the  conception  of  a  thing  there 
is  no  need  [such  as  the  scholastic  view  necessarily  implies]  to  put  in  two  planes 
side  by  side,  the  thing,  and  its  attributes  which  are  felt  and  perceived  by  us  at 
the  same  time,  and  to  put  the  one  behind  the  other,  and  to  assert  the  possibility 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  thing  behind  its  attributes  or  before  the  recognition  of 
them.  Nor  is  there  need  of  this,  when  the  conception  of  a  thing  is  enriched 
when  the  marks  are  understood  as  manifest  effects  of  a  cause  and  as  means  to  an 
end,  when  one  recognizes  the  marks  as  changing  in  definite  limits,  and  the  whole 
as  effective  in  the  regular  change  of  its  attributes;  when,  finally,  one  supposes  a 
law  in  the  perceived  history  of  a  thing.  [Rather]  the  thing  is  caused  in  its  effects 
and  purpose  in  the  ordered  series  in  its  appearing  changes. 

These  two  passages  contain  the  clear  statements  of  Ritschl  con- 
cerning his  conception  of  the  thing,  and  show  his  acceptance  of  the 


690  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

ontology  of  Lotze.  According  to  the  statements  here,  a  thing  is 
causality.  It  is  operative  and  dynamic.  It  is  activity.  But  it  is 
not  mere  becoming.  It  is  activity  or  change  within  certain  limits 
and  according  to  its  own  definite  law.  A  thing  has  the  purposive 
causality  of  a  self. 

Ritschl's  statements  are  so  brief  that  they  cannot  be  understood 
except  in  the  light  of  Lotze's  fuller  exposition.  He  accepts  Lotze's 
idea  of  cause:  causality  is  efficient.  He  accepts  again  Lotze's  idea 
of  change.  "The  phenomena  of  a  thing  exhibit  changes  in  a  definite 
sphere  and  to  a  limited  extent."^ ^  Lotze  tells  us  that  "phenomena 
neither  persist  without  change,  nor  change  without  a  principle  of 
change."  But  change  with  him  indicates  transformations  or  move- 
ments of  the  thing  "within  a  limited  sphere  of  quality."  "The 
essence  or  substance  of  a  thing  is  that  which  admits  of  change,"  but 
in  change  "the  thing  never  passes  over  from  one  sphere  to  another." 

When  Ritschl  defines  the  thing  as  the  "law  of  the  constant  change 
of  the  qualities,"  or  supposes  "a  law  in  the  perceived  history  of  the 
thing,"  he  is  giving  an  abbreviated  statement  of  Lotze's  position. 
For  Lotze  declares  "that  the  essence  of  a  thing  cannot  be  expressed 
in  a  quality,  but  only  in  the  logical  form  of  a  conception,  which 
expresses  the  permanently  uniform  observance  of  law  in  the  succes- 
sion of  various  states  or  the  combination  of  various  predicates."'^ 
A  thing  for  Lotze  is  known  in  its  behavior.  The  complete  conception 
of  a  thing  includes  its  past  and  future  history. 

Even  the  actual  present  condition  of  a  thing  would  not  admit  of  exhaustive 
analysis  without  thinking  of  the  mutual  connection  of  the  manifold  phenomena 
which  it  exhibits  as  already  ordered,  according  to  the  same  law  which  would 
appear  still  more  plainly  upon  a  consideration  of  the  various  states  past  and  to 
be  expected  of  the  thing. 

This  concept  of  a  thing  as  the  law  of  its  changes  serves  to  bring  out 
the  idea  of  unity  in  difference,  and  yet  Lotze  confesses  that  it  is  a  very 
imperfect  concept  of  a  thing.  For  a  thing  is  always  more  than  a 
concept  or  idea.  We  must  remember,  too,  the  methodological  char- 
acter of  our  concepts.  Then  the  term  "law,"  as  used  above,  needs 
to  be  defined.  By  the  use  of  the  term  he  does  not  mean  a  general 
law,  but  "an  instance  of  its  application."     Then,  too,  law  may  be 

j8  Metaphysics,  Vol.  I,  chap.  2.  '9  Ibid.,  chap.  3. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  KITSCH L        691 

individual,  and  this  is  meant  here.  We  may  define  the  thing  as  "the 
realized  individual  law  of  its  behavior."  Yet  this  statement  is  not 
exact,  since  the  law  is  not  realized,  but  has  always  been  real. 

It  is  not  a  law  which,  though  real  as  law,  had  still  to  wait  to  be  followed,  but 
one  followed  eternally,  and  so  followed  that  the  law,  with  the  following  of  it, 
was  not  a  mere  fact  or  event  that  takes  place,  but  a  self-completing  activity. 
And  this  activity  we  look  upon,  not  in  the  nature  of  a  behavior  separable  from 
the  essence  which  so  behaves,  but  as  forming  the  essence  itself — the  essence  not 
being  a  dead  point  behind  the  activity,  but  identical  with  it.  But,  however  fain 
we  might  be  to  speak  of  a  real  law  or  a  living  idea,  in  order  the  better  to  express 
our  thought,  language  would  always  compel  us  to  put  two  words  together  on 
which  the  ordinary  course  of  thinking  has  stamped  two  incompatible  and  con- 
tradictory meanings. 

One  may,  or  may  not,  accept  this  idea  of  a  thing,  but  Ritschl  does 
accept  it,  and  when  his  statement  is  viewed  and  interpreted  in  the 
light  of  Lotze's  fuller  exposition,  many  of  the  criticisms  of  his  oppo- 
nents lose  their  force. 

When  Ritschl  ascribes  purposive  causality  to  things — when  the 
thing  is  defined  as  "the  end  which  the  qualities  serve  as  means" — 
he  means  to  accept  Lotze's  view  that  things  possess  a  certain  selfhood. 
"If  there  be  things,"  Lotze  says,  "with  the  properties  we  demand  of 
things,  they  must  be  more  than  things.  Only  by  sharing  this  char- 
acteristic of  spiritual  nature  can  they  fulfil  the  general  requirements 
which  must  be  fulfilled  in  order  to  constitute  a  thing. "^° 

Our  ideas,  feelings,  and  efforts  appear  to  be  in  their  nature  the  states  of  a 
being,  of  the  necessary  unity  of  which,  as  contrasted  with  them,  we  are  imme- 
diately conscious  ....  for  these  inner  events  appear  to  us  as  states  only  through 
the  marvelous  nature  of  mind,  which  can  compare  every  idea,  every  feeling,  every 
passion,  with  others;  and,  just  because  of  this  relating  activity  with  reference  to 
them  all,  knows  itself  as  a  permanent  subject  from  which  under  various  condi- 
tions they  result.*' 

The  self,  then,  is  for  Lotze  the  best  example  of  a  thing,  and  it  is 
not  in  thought  merely,  but  by  our  whole  experience,  that  we  are  able 
to  know  ourselves,  and  what  we  mean  by  a  thing.  In  the  passages 
already  quoted  we  see  that  for  Lotze  there  is  not  some  substance 
behind  the  thing  or  soul  to  which  the  qualities  adhere.  It  is  not  a 
substance   which  lies   behind   things   and   gives   them   reality,   but 

2°  Metaphysics,  Vol.  I,  chap.  7,  §  97.  21  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  633. 


692  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

"reality  is  that  ideal  content  which,  by  means  of  what  it  is,  is  capable 
of  producing  the  appearance  of  a  substance  lying  within  it,  to  which 
it  belongs  as  predicate." ^^ 

We  have  seen  that  Ritschl  accepts  Lotze's  definition  of  a  thing. 
We  have  now  to  point  out  that  certain  passages  indicate  that,  like 
Lotze,  he  held  that  things  are  in  constant  interaction.  Lotze  affirms 
that  things  are  in  interaction,  and  that  the  nature  of  the  inter- 
action is  determined  by  the  natures  of  the  interacting  things  and 
by  the  relations  existing  between  them.  A  certain  state  is  not  car- 
ried over  from  one  body  into  another.  ^^  But  the  effect  in  a  body  A 
is  determined  when  we  consider  both  the  nature  of  A  and  of  B,  the 
interacting  things,  and  the  relations  C  under  which  they  interact. 
Further,  the  relation  between  subject  and  object  comes  under  the 
general  relation  of  the  interaction  of  things.  When  subject  and  object 
interact,  states  are  produced  in  the  former.  "Our  ideas  are  excited 
in  the  first  instance  by  means  of  external  impulse."  For  this  reason, 
an  idea  is  not  a  mere  copy  of  something.  Since  it  comes  under  the 
general  law  of  interaction,  the  nature  of  both  subject  and  object,  and 
the  relation  existing  between  them,  co-operate  in  the  determination 
of  the  idea.  For  Lotze  the  soul  is  active,  and  the  sensation  is  not  a 
passive  content  given,  but  the  reaction  of  the  soul  upon  the  object 
which  stimulates  it. 

Ritschl  accepts  this  view  {JR,  p.  18): 

In  the  theory  of  things,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  self  is  not  of  itself  the 
cause  of  sensations,  perceptions,  etc.,  but  that  these  peculiar  activities  of  the 
soul  are  stimulated  by  its  coexistence  with  things  of  which  the  human  body  is 
one  {TM,  p.  44). 

The  soul  affirms  itself  as  "  cause  of  its  changing  sensations  under  the 
stimulus  of  the  appearance  of  the  thing."  He  speaks  {TM,  p.  64) 
of  a  "  series  of  sensations  excited  by  the  thing." 

For  all  causes  which  aflfect  the  soul  work  upon  it  as  stimuli  of  the  special 
activity  with  which  it  is  endowed.  The  relation  of  the  soul  to  all  the  causes  which 
work  upon  it  is  not  one  of  simple  passivity;  all  actions  upon  it,  rather,  it  takes  up 
in  its  sensations,  as  a  reaction  in  which  it  manifests  itself  as  an  independent  cause 
{JR,  p.  21). 

If  sensations  and  perceptions  are  states  in  a  self  or  thing  as  a 
result  of  its  interaction  with  others,  then  knowledge  is  subjective, 

2»  Outlines  of  Metaphysics,  §  28.  »3  Ibid.,  §  48. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        693 

though  it  may  have  a  transubjcctive  reference.  This  is  what  Ritschl 
seems  to  hold.  He  gives  the  following  as  a  psychological  genesis  of 
the  concept  of  a  thing: 

The  presentation  {Vorstellung)  of  a  thing  arises  out  of  the  different  sensations 
which,  in  a  definite  order,  fasten  themselves  to  something  that  perception  fixes 
in  a  limited  space.  We  posit  the  apple  as  a  round,  red,  sweet  thing,  since  the 
sensations  of  touch,  sight,  and  taste  bunch  themselves  in  the  place  in  which  the 
corresponding  relations  of  form,  color,  and  taste  are  perceived.  These  same 
relations  which  by  repeated  perceptions  meet  in  a  common  spot  we  unite  in  the 
idea  of  a  thing,  which  exists  in  its  relations,  which  we  know  only  in  these  relations 
and  designate  by  means  of  them.  The  relation  of  the  marks  in  question,  thus 
fixed  by  our  sensations,  to  the  thing  which  we  express  in  the  "judgment,"  "This 
thing  is  round,  red,  and  sweet,"  signifies  that  we  know  the  subject  of  this  propo- 
sition solely  in  the  predicate.  Could  we  leave  them  out  of  view,  or  forget  them, 
the  thing  which  we  had  come  to  know  in  and  by  these  marks  would  cease  to  be  a 
matter  of  knowledge  {TM,  p.  63). 

The  impression  that  the  perceived  thing  in  the  change  of  its  marks  is  one, 
arises  from  the  continuity  of  the  feeling  of  self  in  the  succession  of  sensations 
excited  by  the  thing.  Further,  the  apprehension  of  the  thing  as  cause  and  as  its 
own  end  arises  from  the  certainty  that  I  am  cause  and  that  I  am  end  in  the  activ- 
ities due  to  me The  appearances  which  are  perceived  in  a  limited  space  in 

the  same  position  or  series,  and  their  changes  in  a  definite  limit  and  order,  are 
combined  by  our  faculty  of  representation  to  the  unity  of  a  thing,  after  the  analogy 
of  the  cognizing  soul  which,  in  the  change  of  its  corresponding  sensations,  feels 
and  remembers  itself  as  permanent  unity  {TM,  p.  44). 

In  these  passages  Ritschl  explains  how  we  form  the  concept  of 
the  thing.  He  reminds  us  of  Kant.  And  if  these  passages,  together 
with  the  definition  of  metaphysics  as  presenting  the  categories  of  the 
mind  (which  was  discussed  in  the  previous  section),  were  taken  apart 
from  his  ontological  position,  we  would  pronounce  Ritschl  Kantian. 
We  seem  to  have  here  Kant's  logical  or  psychological  division  of  form 
and  content.  We  have  the  faculty  of  representation  uniting  the 
sensations  into  a  phenomenon-thing.  The  thing,  apart  from  this 
content,  is  a  pure  formal  concept.  Kant  says:  "The  unity  neces- 
sitated by  the  object  cannot  be  anything  but  the  formal  unity  of  our 
consciousness,  in  the  synthesis  of  the  manifold  in  our  representa- 
tions."^'* Kant  tells  us  again:  "Phenomena  are  nothing  but  sen- 
suous representations,  which  therefore  by  themselves  must  not  be 
taken  for  objects  outside  the  faculty  of  representation." ^^ 

24  Critique  0}  Pure  Reason  (Max  Miiller's  translation),  p.  87.  ^s  ibij,.^  p.  86. 


694  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

But  is  it  possible  for  Ritschl  here  to  be  in  agreement  with  his 
ontological  position  and  with  the  general  position  of  Lotze  ?  That 
he  thought  so  is  plain  from  his  appeal  to  Lotze  in  the  very  passage 
{TMj  p.  44)  which  sounds  most  like  Kant,  and  in  the  other  passage 
(pp.  63,  64)  he  passes  at  once  from  the  genesis  of  the  concept  to  its 
validity.  Further,  in  these  very  passages  the  excitation  of  sensations 
is  caused  by  the  thing.  In  the  matters  here  discussed  the  position 
of  Lotze  does  not  differ  materially  from  that  of  Kant.  For  Kant  the 
world  of  nature  is  the  product  of  consciousness.  It  is  constructed 
by  the  understanding.  Phenomena,  then,  are  in  consciousness. 
While  Kant's  general  thought  is  that  consciousness  embraces  both 
subject  and  object,  yet  sometimes  he  would  seem  to  imply  that  the 
world  of  objects  is  the  mental  construction  of  the  individual  conscious 
self.  For  Kant,  then,  we  know  phenomena.  But  now  Lotze  finds 
in  this  statement,  that  we  know  phenomena,^*^  a  prejudice.  What 
Kant  calls  phenomenon,  the  mental  construction,  it  would  seem  that 
Lotze  would  call  knowledge.  Kant's  phenomena  are  not  realities, 
because  they  are  a  knowledge  of  reality,  and  knowledge  is  subjective. 
Knowledge  is  knowledge  for  someone  just  as  truly  as  it  is  knowledge 
of  something.  Sensations,  perceptions,  and  conceptions  are  elements 
of  knowledge,  and  are  the  possession  of  an  individual  consciousness. 
Lotze  says,  in  the  passage  to  which  Ritschl  appeals: 

We  admit,  therefore,  the  complete  subjectivity  of  our  knowledge  with  the 
less  ambiguity  because  we  see  clearly,  moreover,  that  it  is  unavoidable,  and  that 
although  we  may  forego  the  claim  to  all  knowledge  whatever,  we  can  put  no 
other  knowledge  in  the  place  of  that  on  which  doubt  is  thrown  that  would  not  be 
open  to  the  same  reproach.  .  .  .  But  this  universal  character  of  subjectivity  as 
belonging  to  all  knowledge  can  settle  nothing  as  to  its  truth  or  untruth.  And  it 
is  a  fallacy,  on  account  of  the  subjectivity  of  all  the  elements  out  of  which  it  has 
been  formed,  to  deny  its  truth,  and  to  pronounce  the  outer  world  to  be  merely  a 
creation  of  our  imagination  For  the  state  of  things  could  be  no  other,  were 
the  things  without  us  or  not.  Our  knowledge  in  the  one  case,  our  impressions 
in  the  other,  could  alike  consist  only  in  states  or  activities  of  our  own  being — in 
what  we  call  impressions  made  on  our  nature,  supposing  these  to  be  things,  but 
on  no  supposition  on  anything  other  than  a  subjective  property  of  ours.*' 

The  demonstration  of  a  thoroughgoing  subjectivity  of  all  the  elements  of  our 
cognition,  sensations,  pure  intuitions,  and  pure  notions  of  the  understanding  is 

**  Logic,  §  312.  *7  Metaphysics,  §  94. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        695 

in  no  respect  decisive  against  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of  a  world  of  things 
outside  of  ourselves.  For  it  is  clear  that  this  subjectivity  of  cognition  must  in  any 
case  be  true,  whether  things  do  or  do  not  exist.  For,  even  if  things  exist,  still 
our  cognition  of  them  cannot  consist  in  their  actually  finding  an  entrance  into 
us,  but  only  in  their  exercising  an  action  upon  us.  But  the  products  of  this  action, 
as  affections  of  our  being,  can  receive  their  form  from  our  nature  alone.  And 
it  is  easy  to  persuade  ourselves  that,  even  in  case  things  do  actually  exist,  all 
parts  of  our  cognition  will  have  the  very  same  subjectivity  as  that  from  which  it 
might  be  hastily  concluded  that  things  do  not  exist.'* 

In  his  Logic, ^"^  Lotze  points  out  that  an  intelligence  can  never  be 
the  thing-in-itself,  but  can  only  "have  an  aggregate  of  ideas  about 
the  thing.  He  who  demands  a  knowledge  which  shall  be  more  than 
a  connected  and  consistent  system  of  ideas  about  the  thing — a  knowl- 
edge that  should  exhaust  the  thing-itself — is  no  longer  asking  for 
knowledge  at  all,  but  for  something  entirely  unintelligible." 

What,  then,  Kant  calls  phenomena,  Lotze  would  apparently  call 
knowledge.  Sensations,  percepts,  concepts,  unite  to  form  knowledge, 
but  not  things.  They  are  processes  in  the  individual  consciousness. 
But  things  exist  for  Lotze  whether  we  know  them  or  not.  When 
you  ask  after  the  psychological  genesis  of  knowledge — that  is,  after 
the  relation  of  sense  to  understanding — Lotze's  position  is  similar  to 
that  of  Kant.  He  advances  somewhat  upon  the  psychology  of  Kant, 
but  his  general  position  is  the  same.  There  are  with  Lotze  certain 
a  priori  elements  in  knowledge,  there  are  logical  acts  which  have 
formal  and  not  real  significance.     He  says: 

We  cannot  assent  to  the  distinction  between  the  matter  and  form  of  knowl- 
edge as  drawn  by  Kant.  The  idea  is,  indeed,  perfectly  just,  but  he  formulates 
it  inaccurately  when  he  ascribes  the  entire  content  to  experience,  and  the  form 
alone  to  the  innate  activity  of  the  mind.  Kant  was  well  aware  of  the  fact  that 
even  the  simplest  sensations  which  in  the  strictest  sense  furnish  the  original 
content  of  all  our  perception  do  not  come  to  us  ready  made  from  without,  but, 
on  the  contrary  (if  we  are  to  hold  to  the  concept  of  an  external  world),  can  only 
be  considered  as  reactions  of  our  own  nature  of  combined  sense  and  intellect  in 
response  to  the  stimuli  coming  from  that  world.3° 

It  is  not,  then,  for  Lotze  that  the  content  of  sensation  is  furnished 
by  an  unknowable,  and  that  the  mind  subsumes  this  under  its  own 
forms;   but  rather  that  the  soul,  stimulated  by  its  interaction  with 

28  Outlines  0}  Metaphysics,  §  79.  »»  Logic,  §  308. 

30  Ibid.,  §  326. 


696  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

things,  reacts  in  the  form  of  sensations,  feelings,  and  ideas.  The 
concept  of  a  thing  is  formed  from  its  continued  activity.  Now,  it  is 
a  "sensation  which  is  our  warrant  for  the  presence  of  real  being. 
....  There  is  this  reality  of  content,  which  in  the  last  resort  is  given 
only  in  sensuous  perception."^'  "Sensation  is  the  only  warrant  for 
the  certainty  that  something  is."  If  now  you  abstract  from  your 
concept  of  the  thing  all  the  qualities,  you  have  left  an  abstract  form 
which  cannot  convey  knowledge  of  any  particular  thing. 

Ritschl,  then,  is  in  accord  with  Lotze  when  he  describes  the 
genesis  of  a  concept  as  a  subjective  process;  when  he  further  says 
that,  apart  from  its  qualities,  a  thing  is  a  purely  formal  concept;  and 
when  he  affirms  that  "the  sensations  which  come  to  us  through  the 
senses  are  the  first  and  last  guarantee  that  the  things,  which  we 
perceive  in  the  sensations  which  they  excite,  exist  or  are  real"  (Tilf, 
pp.  44,  58).  He  is  in  accord  with  him  when  he  affirms  that  the  unity 
of  the  concept  arises  out  of  the  continuity  of  the  feeling  of  self,  and 
when  he  ascribes  cause  to  the  thing  after  the  analogy  of  the  soul. 
Lotze  affirms  that  "what  we  take  to  be  the  perception  of  a  thing  is 
never  more  than  a  plurality  of  contemporary  sensations  held  together 
by  nothing  but  the  identity  of  the  place  at  which  they  are  presented 
to  us,  and  by  the  unity  of  our  consciousness  which  binds  them  together 
as  intuitions. "3  "*  But,  says  Lotze,  the  natural  theory  of  the  world 
never  believes  that  it  finds  the  essence  of  the  thing  in  these  qualities, 
and  he  seeks  for  a  more  adequate  conception  of  the  thing.  Ritschl 
follows  him  when  he  says  that  the  subject  is  known  in  its  predicates, 
and  uses  for  illustration  the  very  sentence  of  Lotze:  "The  thing  is 
round,  red,  and  sweet."  But  he  passes  at  once  from  what  he  calls 
an  elementary  concept  of  a  thing  to  a  more  adequate  one,  that  is,  to 
Lotze's  definition  of  a  thing. 

But  how  can  we  pass  from  the  genesis  of  the  concept  to  its  validity  ? 
How  go  from  the  subjectivity  of  knowledge  to  the  transubjective 
reality  of  the  thing?  Ritschl  does  this  several  times,  but  he  never 
tells  us  how.  Let  us  turn  to  Lotze.  It  is,  indeed,  a  difficult  question 
for  him  to  answer.  He  gives  us  an  antithesis  of  thought  and  things, 
but  just  how  thought  assures  us  of  things  which  are  not  thoughts  is 
a  difficult  problem.     It  seems  to  come  down  to  the  fact  of  intuition, 

31  Metaphysics,  Vol.  I,  chap,  i,  §  344.  32  Ihid.,  Vol.  I,  §  16. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        697 

of  immediate  conviction,  to  feeling,  to  the  sensation  itself.  It  is  a 
deep  conviction  which  we  must  accept  as  true.  "Fichte  did  not 
draw  the  only  logical  inference  that  could  be  drawn,  namely,  solip- 
sism. And  if  you  admit  the  existence  of  others,  then  why  not  of  real 
things."  Bowne,  a  disciple  of  Lotze,  calls  things  "projected  con- 
ceptions." "We  do  not  know,"  he  affirms,  "how  our  thoughts, 
which  arise  and  exist  only  in  our  consciousness,  should  yet  grasp 
realities  independent  of  our  consciousness;  but  we  are  compelled  to 
admit  the  fact,  and  if  in  one  case,  then  why  not  in  others."  Lotze 
acknowledges  that  there  is  not  the  same  necessity  for  this  in  the  case 
of  things  that  there  is  in  that  of  persons.  For  a  Universal  Being 
could  act  upon  us  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  uniform  impression 
of  things,  and  satisfy  all  our  intellectual  demands.  A  subjective 
idealism  is  then  a  possibility.  But,  in  general,  Lotze  assumes  the 
existence  of  things  as  a  fact  of  which  we  are  immediately  conscious. 
And  his  explanation  of  this  would  seem  to  be  as  follows :  Things  exist 
in  interaction.  Sensations,  ideas  and  feelings  are  the  states  in  a  con- 
scious being  which  arise  through  this  interaction.  They  give  us 
knowledge  of  reality.  Appearance  has  both  a  subject  to  which  it 
appears  and  an  object  which  appears.  Ideas  are  not  things,  they  are 
not  copies  of  things,  but  they  are  valid  of  things.  Every  sensation, 
feeling,  or  idea  "is  in  itself  a  bit  of  information  about  reality; "^^  it 
is  the  very  nature  of  knowledge  that  it  gives  us  information  of  things 
beyond  the  immediate  experience.  The  concept  of  a  thing  may 
arise  in  the  child-mind  after  repeated  experiences.  And  the  concept 
conveys  to  the  child  information  concerning  its  own  cause.  It  is  in 
this  light  that  Ritschl  is  to  be  interpreted  when  he  makes  real  things 
the  cause  of  experience,  and  yet  regards  the  concept  of  the  thing  as 
the  product  of  experience. 

The  interpretation  given  above  seems  to  be  Lotze's  thought.  If 
so,  then  he  teaches  that  we  know  reality.  We  have  partial  knowledge 
because  we  are  finite,  and  stand,  not  in  the  center,  but  at  the  periphery 
of  reality.  We  can  outline  reality;  we  can  tell  its  formal  character. 
Things  are  soul-like  entities;  but  our  knowledge  is  limited.  For 
Lotze  this  is  not  valuable  knowledge  which  leads  us  to  see  the  formal 
nature  of  things ;  but  the  laws  of  science,  and  the  values  which  ethics 

33  Robins,  Lotze's  Theory  0}  Knowledge,  chap.  2,  p.  52. 


698  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

and  religion  express,  constitute  the  really  valuable  knowledge  and 
give  content  to  the  reality  whose  formal  character  ontology  delineates. 
If  we  were  to  accept  Lotze's  Logic  alone,  we  would  be  inclined  to 
say  that  he  limits  knowledge  to  phenomena;  but  in  that  case  he 
should  not  discuss  the  nature  of  things  in  themselves.  Interpreters 
differ,  and  Lotze  is  so  many-sided  that  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
him.  Robins  interprets  him  in  accordance  with  the  interpretation 
here  given.  Many  of  his  students  take  the  same  general  position. 
Ritschl  seems  to  have  interpreted  him  thus,  and  that  is  important  for 
us.  He  considers  him  a  mean  between  gnostic  scholasticism  and 
agnostic  Kantianism. 

In  Ritschl's  theory  of  knowledge  he  denies  the  scholastic  concep- 
tion of  substance  as  the  essence  of  things.  He  denies  the  separation 
they  make  between  the  thing  and  its  qualities.  He  denies  their 
claim  to  perfect  knowledge,  and  finds  in  it  a  logical  fallacy.  They 
transform  a  logical  concept  into  a  metaphysical  entity.  They  over- 
emphasize the  laws  of  thought,  and  make  them  constitutive  of  reality 
when  they  are  only  methodological.  He  rejects  Kantianism.  It  is 
not  true  that  we  know  only  phenomena.  This  reduces  knowledge  to 
an  illusion.  He  accepts  Lotze's  position,  and  interprets  him  to  mean 
that  we  have  a  partial  knowledge  of  reality.  We  know  the  formal 
nature  of  things  by  metaphysics.  Their  real  nature  is  learned  by 
experience,  and  induction  is  the  method  of  procedure.  "We  can 
never  know  things  as  a  perfect  intelligence  knows  them,  but  only  as 
they  are  for  us.  Knowledge  is  subjective.  It  is  the  possession  of  an 
individual  consciousness,  but  it  has  an  objective  reference. 

Ill 

I.  The  Platonic  theory  of  knowledge. — Wendland  says^''  that 
Ritschl  does  not  know  the  difference  between  a  memory-image  and  a 
concept.  Neither  does  he  appreciate  the  function  of  a  concept.  Our 
concepts  are  not  merely  a  matter  of  preference,  but  we  are  led  to  form 
them  by  the  nature  of  reality  outside  of  us.  When  a  class-concept  is 
correctly  formed,  it  is  as  sharply  and  clearly  drawn  as  that  of  an 
individual  thing.     Ritschl  virtually  denies  that  careful  thinking  fol- 

34  Albrecht  Ritschl  und  seine  Schuler,  pp.  37-46. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL       699 

lowing  perception  can  give  us  a  better  knowledge  of  objects  than 
perception  alone. 

Liidemann^s  considers  it  is  false  to  compare  ideas  as  Plato  used 
them  with  memory-images.  Plato,  moreover,  held  that  the  ideas 
were  in  relation  to  us,  though  not  to  our  sense,  yet  to  our  thought ; 
so  they  are  not  things-in-thcmselves.  These  ideas  were  not  to  account 
for  the  changeable,  but  the  endurable  in  things.  His  ideas  were 
concepts,  and  when  Ritschl  fails  to  find  a  definite  and  clear  knowledge 
in  them,  it  is  because  he  confuses  concepts  with  intuitions. 

Esslinger^^  judges  from  Ritschl's  attacks  upon  class-concepts  that 
he  would  forbid  conceptional  thinking,  since  he  regards  it  as  self- 
deception  to  attain  definite  and  clear  knowledge  by  means  of  concepts. 
One,  then,  knows  less  about  on  object  after  reflection  upon  it,  than 
before.  Ritschl  needs  to  be  reminded  that  "percepts  without  con- 
cepts are  blind."  The  idea  of  an  apple  is  a  definite  and  clear  pre- 
sentation. 

These  criticisms  contain  an  element  of  truth.  Ritschl  does  not 
discriminate  between  an  image  and  a  concept.  The  difference  is 
entirely  one  of  function.  A  concept  is  a  rule  for  the  construction  of 
the  object  or  class.  The  image  may  serve  for  the  picture  of  the  con- 
cept. One  does  not  always  fill  out  the  picture  fully.  But  the  image 
is  always  particular.  There  is  no  image  of  a  horse  in  general.  The 
difference  between  the  particular  and  the  general  is  one  of  function. 

Ritschl,  in  his  brief  statement  of  Plato's  ideas,  does  not  do  justice 
to  that  philosopher.  His  ideas  were  universals.  Lotze,  in  his 
Logic,^''  recognizes  the  problem  of  Plato,  and  ascribes  to  his  ideas  the 
reality  of  eternal  validity.  He  thinks  this  is  what  Plato  himself  meant 
to  claim  for  them.  But  Ritschl  does  put  his  finger  on  the  difficulty 
in  Plato's  thought,  namely,  the  causal  relation  between  pure  eternal 
being  and  the  changing  individual  things  of  sense-perceptions. 
Ritschl,  moreover,  is  correct  when  he  says  that,  because  of  the  logical 
value  of  universals  and  concepts,  they  are  often  improperly  valued 
and  employed.  They  are  given  a  metaphysical  existence.  The 
relation  of  substance  and  attribute  is  a  logical  one.  We  call  that 
"attribute"  or  "quality"  which  we  cannot  think  of  without  ascrib- 

35  Prolestantische  Monatshejte,  1897,  pp.  189-205. 

36  Zur  Erkenntnisstheorie  Ritschl's.  37  Logic,  §§  316-20. 


700  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

ing  it  to  something  else,  and  we  call  that  "  substance  "  which  we  regard 
as  the  bearer  of  these  qualities.  A  thing,  then,  is  a  substance  in 
respect  to  something  else.  Substance  and  qualities  are  correlates. 
And  the  same  thing  may  be  a  quality  with  respect  to  one  thing,  and 
yet  be  regarded  as  substance  in  respect  to  another.  Now,  in  the 
case  of  a  physical  body  there  are  certain  qualities  which,  as  Ritschl 
points  out,  are  constant,  e.  g.,  extension  and  resistance;  while  there 
are  others  which  change  with  every  experience.  We  may  regard 
the  former  as  substance,  since  they  represent  the  relatively  common 
or  constant  element  in  our  experience.  We  may  call  them  the  essential 
elements  of  the  thing,  and  regard  the  other  qualities  as  accidents. 
But  when  we  regard  them  as  forming  a  separate  metaphysical  entity, 
to  which  the  other  qualities  are  attached,  we  have,  as  Ritschl  affirms, 
hypostasized  a  logical  abstraction.  These  qualities  of  extension  and 
resistance,  as  a  separate  metaphysical  entity,  have  no  more  reality 
apart  from  the  whole  concrete  experience  than  do  the  other  qualities 
which  change  with  every  perception.  The  same  may  be  said  with 
regard  to  any  state  of  self-consciousness.  There  are  certain  elements 
which  are  relatively  constant.  The  impulsive  element  of  will,  or 
that  which  Kant  designates  the  "I  think,"  may  be  found  in  every 
state  of  consciousness.  Every  state  of  consciousness  is  impulsive, 
or  it  is  owned.  I  cannot  have  a  state  of  consciousness  without  think- 
ing of  it  as  mine,  without  referring  it  to  the  ego.  Yet  to  make  of  this 
will-element  present  in  every  concrete  state,  or  of  this  "I  think,"  a 
separate  and  metaphysical  entity  which  lies  behind  consciousness  and 
is  the  cause  of  all  its  states — to  find  in  it  a  metaphysical  self — is  to 
hypostasize  a  logical  abstraction  which  can  have  no  existence  apart 
from  the  concrete  whole  from  which  it  has  been  abstracted.^^  In 
his  doctrine  of  the  memory-image  Ritschl  does  point  out  how  meta- 
physical entities  are  placed  behind  souls  and  things  as  substances  or 
things-in-themselves  which  support  the  qualities  and  activities.  In 
doing  this  he  places  himself  in  line  with  modern  psychology  and 
logical  thought. 

Ritschl  does  not  stand  for  the  particular  against  the  universal,  as 
Esslinger  affirms,  but  for  the  individual  as  against  either  an  abstract 
particular  or  an  abstract  universal.     He  does  not  say  that  repeated 

38  Cf.  Frank  Thilly.  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XI. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        701 

observation  and  reflection  will  not  give  us  a  better  knowledge  of 
things — he  tacitly  assumes  that  they  do;  but  he  does  say  that  these 
repeated  observations  and  reflections  simply  relate  the  thing  more 
completely  to  the  self,  and  so  the  thing  by  them  is  not  known  apart 
from  its  relations  to  us.  When  Ritschl  denies  that  a  clear  knowledge 
can  be  gained  from  the  concept  of  an  apple,  his  real  point  is  one  of 
method.  It  is  not  wise  to  begin  with  the  concept  of  " apple,"  "soul," 
or  "absolute,"  and  from  this  concept  seek  to  attain  truth  by  means 
of  speculative  and  logical  thought.  Here  Ritschl  has  in  mind 
Hegelianism,  and  is  influenced  by  Lotze.  The  latter  everywhere 
points  out  the  danger  in  taking  universals  of  thought  for  reality. 
He  affirms,  over  against  the  constitutive  nature  of  thought,  its  metho- 
dological character. 

Every  concept  expresses  only  an  aspect  of  a  thing.  There  can  be  several 
equally  right  and  fruitful  concepts  of  the  same  thing.  The  concept  manifests 
only  a  part  of  the  nature  of  the  thing.  It  beholds  it  from  the  periphery  and  not 
the  center.  All  such  concepts  are  liable  to  change  and  modification,  and  can 
gradually  develop  and  express  more  and  more  the  nature  of  a  thing.^^ 

But  does  not  Ritschl  lay  too  much  stress  upon  the  abstract  char- 
acter of  thought  ?  For  him  the  process  of  attaining  universals  is  a 
process  of  abstraction.  The  greater  the  extension,  the  less  the  inten- 
sion. Lotze"*"  tells  us  that  the  universal  has  as  many  marks  as  a 
subsumed  individual,  but  that  the  marks  are  general  in  the  former, 
while  in  the  latter  they  are  definite.  Yet  even  he  admits  that  in  the 
most  general  universal  some  marks  would  be  reduced  to  zero.  We 
may  admit  that  all  thought  is  an  abstraction.  But  it  is  a  necessary 
abstraction.  It  is  so  because  the  reality  of  immediate  experience 
has  gone  from  us,  and  we  seek  a  method  to  bring  us  in  contact  with 
reality  again.  Thought  is  abstract  because  it  is  only  a  phase  of 
experience;  it  is  abstract  as  long  as  it  is  inadequate.  But  when  we 
say  that  the  forming  of  universals  is  an  advance  in  abstraction,  we  are 
looking  at  but  one  phase  in  the  process.  We  do  abstract  to  attain  a 
universal,  but  we  attain  the  universal  to  apply  it,  and  in  that  sense 
the  process  is  toward  concreteness.     Let  us  take  Ritschl's  concept  of 

39  Robins,  Lotze' s  Theory  0/  Knowledge,  chap.  2,  p.  63;  cf.  also  Lotze,  Logic, 
§§  345,  316,  138;   Mikrokosmus,  Vol.  II,  pp.  333  ff. 

40  Logic,  §§  25-33. 


702  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

an  apple.  We  form  the  concept  ''apple"  as  the  predicate  of  the 
judgment,  "This  is  an  apple."  Now,  if  this  is  a  live  judgment, 
we  know  more  about  the  subject,  the  "this,"  than  we  did  before 
the  judging  process.  It  is  not  a  pear,  or  some  other  fruit,  but  an 
apple.  And  we  know  more  about  the  predicate,  the  "apple,"  since 
all  apples  are  now  related  to  this  one  particular  species  of  fruit. 
Knowledge  is  relating,  and  every  advance  to  universals  means  an 
increase  in  relations. 

Ritschl  is  correct  in  his  emphasis  on  the  individual.  The  indi- 
vidual apple  is  the  real  apple.  It  is  this  I  must  take  account  of, 
if  I  would  have  the  experience  of  eating  an  apple.  This  functional 
point  of  view  would  mean  some  change  in  Lotze's  concept  of  a  thing, 
though  he  approaches  it  when  he  defines  a  thing  in  terms  of  its 
behavior. 

Ritschl's  criticism  of  the  scholastic  conception  of  the  soul  has 
received  severe  criticism  from  the  pen  of  Pfleiderer.^'  The  latter 
thinks  that  when  Ritschl  gives  up  the  concept  of  a  soul  as  a  thing-in- 
itself,  he  takes  the  position  of  the  Positivists.     They  explain 

the  unity  of  the  self  as  appearance  and  only  the  manifoldness  as  the  reality;  but 
how  this  appearance  could  ever  be  brought  about,  how  the  actual  consciousness 
of  the  identical  ego,  how  the  continuity  of  consciousness,  how  recollection  from 
one  day  to  another,  is  possible,  if  there  are  in  us  only  changing  functions,  and 
not  a  permanent  unity  from  which  they  proceed  and  into  which  they  return, 
depositing  there  their  results — this  is  and  remains  hereby  wholly  incomprehen- 
sible. 

Ritcshl,  moreover,  contradicts  himself  when  he  maintains  a  self- 
sufficient  moral  character,  for  he  assumes  the  "in  itself  of  the  soul." 
The  doctrine  of  a  soul  which  seeks  to  do  without  a  soul  will  have 
difficulty  in  finding  a  place  for  immortality. 

Garvey*^  thinks  that  Ritschl's  criticism  of  the  scholastic  separa- 
tion of  the  soul  from  its  activities  is  justified,  and  he  agrees  that  that 
which  is  most  valuable  is  our  conscious  activities,  and  not  the  sub- 
conscious. Yet  Ritschl  is  incautious  in  his  statement,  and  goes 
farther  than  present  psychology  demands.  "Attributes  and  opera- 
tions cannot  be  permanently  construed,  unless  on  the  assumption  of 
such  a  permanent  unity  which  is  manifest  and  active  in,  but  is  not 

41  Ritschl' sche  Theologie,  pp.  10-12. 

42  The  Ritschlian  Theology,  pp.  138-40. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCIIL        703 

exhausted  in,  these  attributes  and  operations."  "There  is  a  mental 
latency,  an  organic  basis,  which  must  be  taken  into  account  in  a 
rational  construction  of  personality,  as  well  as  the  conscious  functions 
and  empirical  variations."  Yet  the  fact  that  Ritschl  accepts  Lotze's 
definition  of  a  thing  which  is  applicable  to  the  self,  as  well  as  his 
treatment  of  the  divine  personality,  shows,  he  thinks,  that  Ritschl 
never  meant  to  deny  the  unity  of  consciousness. 

Traub"*^  agrees  with  Ritschl.  Pfleiderer  identifies  the  scholastic 
concept  of  a  soul-in-itself  behind  its  conscious  functions  with  the 
conception  of  the  unity  of  consciousness,  and  the  whole  force  of  his 
criticism  that  Ritschl  dissolves  the  soul  into  a  multiplicity  of  its 
functions  rests  upon  this  mistaken  identification.  But  the  unity  of 
the  soul  is  not  in  a  substance  behind  consciousness.  The  assumption 
of  an  individual  soul-substance  behind  each  soul  does  not  explain  the 
unity  of  consciousness,  but  only  complicates  the  problem.  This 
conception  has  been  abandoned  by  modern  psychology.  It  affords 
no  help  to  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  For  the  hope  of  immortality 
is  not  grounded  on  the  form  of  the  soul,  but  upon  its  valuable  content. 

Traub's  criticism  of  Pfleiderer  is  correct.  It  is  probable  that  he 
has  not  correctly  interpreted  Pfleiderer,  but  it  is  certain  that  the 
latter  did  not  do  justice  to  Ritschl.  When  Ritschl  rejects  the  soul- 
in-itself,  it  is  the  scholastic  entity  that  he  has  in  mind.  When 
Pfleiderer  affirms  the  "in  itself"  of  the  soul,  he  does  not  mean  it  in 
the  scholastic  sense.  Ritschl's  position  is  here  again  a  reflection  of 
Lotze.'»4  Lotze  rejects  the  scholastic  conception  of  soul-substance. 
The  relating  activity  of  consciousness  affirms  its  necessary  unity. 
''It  is  not  through  a  substance  that  things  have  being,  but  they  have 
being  when  they  are  able  to  produce  the  appearance  of  a  substance 
present  in  them."  If  Lotze  used  the  term  "substance"  for  the  soul, 
he  had  in  mind  nothing  more  than  the  unity  of  consciousness.  He 
considers  that  the  idea  of  a  substance  as  a  sort  of  atom  under  each 
individual  thing  or  soul  is  absurd.  He  chides  Kant  because,  while 
he  shows  conclusively  that  the  soul  in  the  scholastic  sense  would  be 
absolutely  unknowable,  he  still  seems  to  imply  that,  if  we  could  only 
know  it,  we  should  have  some  very  valuable  knowledge.     Lotze  tells 

43  Zeitschrijt  jiir  Theologie  und  Kirche,  1894,  pp.  91-129. 
^Metaphysics,  §§243-47. 


704  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

us  that  we  know  the  being  of  the  thing  in  what  it  is  and  does.  "  Every 
soul  is  what  it  shows  itself  to  be — unity  whose  life  is  in  definite  ideas, 
feelings,  and  efforts."  The  idea  of  substance  does  not  help  us  in 
our  hope  of  immortality,  but  that  hope  rests  upon  the  meaning  of  the 
universe  and  the  significance  of  the  soul  in  its  relation  to  the  whole. 

We  have  seen  that  Ritschl  accepts  Lotze's  ontology,  which  includes 
his  doctrine  of  the  soul.  He  is  antagonistic  to  mysticism.  He 
wishes  to  make  a  place  for  historical  revelation  and  to  put  the  proper 
value  upon  ethical  action,  Ritschl  emphasizes  a  practical  type  of 
piety.  The  practical  philosophy  of  Lotze  appealed  to  him.  They 
have  much  in  common;  but  Ritschl  lacks  what  Lotze  possessed — 
moderation  of  statement  and  the  power  to  recognize  all  phases  of  a 
truth,  even  the  criticisms  and  views  of  his  opponents.  There  is  some 
truth  in  Garvey's  statement.  Consciousness  is  not  exhausted  in  its 
conscious  activities,  and  even  so  noted  a  psychologist  as  Professor 
James,  who  rejects  the  doctrine  of  soul-substance,  and  whose  general 
psychological  and  philosophical  position  is  more  or  less  in  line  with 
Ritschlian  thought,  has  nevertheless,  in  his  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experiences,  an  appreciative  chapter  upon  mysticism,  and  virtually 
finds  place  for  revelation  in  the  subliminal  or  subconscious  self. 

2.  The  Kantian  theory  0}  knowledge. — Pfleiderer  asks :  "If  Ritschl 
agrees  with  Kant  when  he  says  the  thing-in-itself  is  unknowable, 
how  can  he  criticise  him  for  limiting  knowledge  to  phenomena  P"'*^ 
Fliigel'*'^  finds  in  Ritschl  a  misinterpretation  of  Kant.  Kant  never 
says  that  real  things  are  unknowable.  Noumena,  or  things-in- 
themselves,  are  unknowable,  but  real  things  are  phenomena,  and 
these  are  what  we  know.  Traub  finds  that  Ritschl  has  accepted 
the  common  interpretation  of  Kant  which,  while  it  must  be  admitted 
that  it  has  several  passages  in  its  favor,  is  nevertheless  incorrect. 
Kant  never  meant  to  say  that  things-in-themselves  are  unknowable, 
but  "that  their  interdependent  changes  ground  the  world  of  phe- 
nomena." Kant  uses  the  thing-in-itself  as  a  negative  limiting  concept 
{Grenzbegrijj).  It  brings  to  expression  the  limits  of  our  knowledge 
of  experience,  but  it  is  not  a  positive  reality  which  is  at  the  basis  of 
the  phenomenal  world  and  its  changes.     "Theoretical  knowledge,  in 

45  RilschV sche  Theologie,  p.  2. 

46  A.  RUschls  philosophische  und  theologische  Ansichien,  p.  9. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        705 

the  sense  of  Kant,  knows  of  no  other  reality  than  those  of  the  world 
of  phenomenon.  Phenomenon  and  thing  are  one  and  the  same;  a 
being  behind  phenomenon  is  a  mere  chimera." 

Pfleiderer's  criticism  is  keen,  but  superficial.  This  might  be  said, 
in  general,  of  his  entire  treatment  of  Ritschl.  The  very  fact  that 
Ritschl  seems  to  contradict  himself  so  squarely  in  two  consecutive 
sentences  ought  to  have  led  so  able  a  critic  as  Pfleiderer  to  question 
his  own  interpretation.  Pfleiderer  says  of  a  certain  position  of 
Ritschl:  "That  seems  very  simple  and  evident — so  simple  that  one 
might  only  wonder  that  such  sensible  people  as  Plato  and  Kant 
could  not  have  reached  it."  One  feels  like  replying  here  to 
Pfleiderer:  "This  contradiction  seems  very  evident  and  clear — so 
clear,  in  fact,  that  one  can  only  wonder  that  so  sensible  a  man  as 
Ritschl  might  not  even  himself  have  noticed  it."  It  is  difficult  for 
two  men,  representing  such  extremes  in  thought,  spirit,  and  method, 
as  Pfleiderer  and  Ritschl,  to  understand  and  appreciate  each  other. 
Pfleiderer's  work,  however,  is  not  to  be  compared  with  that  of 
Stahlin.-*'  The  extravagance  of  the  criticism,  and  the  whole  tone 
and  spirit  of  that  work,  must  surely  defeat  the  plain  purpose  of  the 
author  in  the  mind  of  any  honest  and  thoughtful  reader. 

There  is  an  apparent  contradiction  in  Ritschl's  statement,  but 
his  thought  is  consistent.  We  have  pointed  out  that,  if  things-in- 
themselves  are  as  the  scholastics  represent  them,  then  they  are 
unknowable.  Ritschl  says:  "Kant  affirms  a  true  criticism  oj  the 
scholastic  interpretation  0}  a  thing."  Ritschl  criticises  Kant  because 
he  saw  this  and  still  maintained  their  conception  of  a  thing,  and  this 
compelled  him  to  limit  knowledge  to  phenomenon.  "The  latter 
part,"  says  Ritschl,  "is  too  near  the  scholastic  theory  to  avoid  its 
errors."  Ritschl's  position  here  is  not  difficult  to  understand,  if 
one  really  wishes  to  understand  him,  nor  is  it  inconsistent. 

In  regard  to  the  criticisms  of  Fliigel  and  Traub,  the  historical 
student  of  Kant  must  answer  that  there  are  two  tendencies  in  Kant, 
and  that  Ritschl  represents  one  and  Traub  the  other.  One  line  of 
Kant's  thought  does  lead  him  to  Traub's  position.  The  real  thing 
and  phenomenon  are  one.  The  thing-in-itself  is  a  limiting  concept. 
It  is  a  necessity  of  thought  to  complete  experience.     The  more  we 

47  Kant,  Lotze,  und  Ritschl. 


7o6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

relate  things,  the  better  we  know  them.  But,  again,  there  is  also  the 
other  line  of  thought  in  Kant,  which  Ritschl  has  correctly  represented 
and  justly  criticised.  Kant  seems  to  have  Locke's  idea  of  the  real 
essence  of  things,  and  to  admit  that  thought  cannot  give  us  this.  We 
do  not  know  things-in-themselves,  but  that  would  be  the  most  valu- 
able knowledge,  if  we  only  could.  For  these  things-in-themselves  are 
the  true  realities,  and,  in  contrast  with  them,  the  phenomena,  which 
we  know,  are  comparatively  unreal.  In  the  moral  world  we  come 
in  contact  with  these  realities,  but  they  lie  behind  the  phenomena  of 
sense  as  the  cause  of  sensations.  There  is  a  realism  in  the  system  of 
Kant  which  is  near  the  scholastic  conception  of  a  thing.  Seth  says'** 
that  it  never  entered  the  mind  of  Kant  to  deny  the  existence  of  things 
in  themselves.  Paulsen"*^  thinks  "every  unbiased  reader  must  admit 
that  Kant  never  for  a  moment  doubted  the  existence  of  things-in- 
themselves.  It  was  the  primary  and  self-evident  presupposition  of 
his  thought  at  all  times."  "The  world  of  appearance  implies  as  a 
necessary  correlate  a  world  that  appears.  Without  this  the  idea  of 
a  phenomenal  world  would  be  meaningless."  Professor  Tufts^° 
shows  how  both  these  tendencies  mentioned  above  are  manifest  in 
the  thought  of  Kant  as  reflected  in  the  Lose  Blatter.  The  neo- 
Kantians  have  developed  the  idealistic  tendency  according  to  which 
the  thing-in-itself  is  the  ultimate  category  or  notion  by  which  we 
round  oflf  experience.  Traub  is  a  neo-Kantian,  and  naturally  places 
this  interpretation  upon  Kant.  Of  the  two  tendencies,  that  of 
Ritschl  is  probably  truer  to  the  thought  of  Kant  himself.  It  is  inter- 
esting also  to  notice  that  in  his  interpretation  of  Kant,  Ritschl  is  in 
line  with  Lotze's^'  interpretation  and  criticism  of  Kant, 

3.  The  Lotzean  theory  0}  knowledge. — No  other  part  of  Ritschl's 
system  has  been  subject  to  so  severe  criticism  as  the  sections  which 
contain  his  epistemological  presuppositions.  His  interpreters  differ 
very  widely,  but  they  nearly  all  unite  in  their  condemnation  of  these 
presuppositions.     Ritschl  has  been  regarded  as  a  subjective  idealist, 

48  "  Epistemology  in  Locke  and  Kant  and  Epistemology  of  the  Neo-Kantians," 
Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  II,  pp.  172-186.  and  293-315. 

49  Immanuel  Kant,  p.  154. 
so  Philosophical  Review. 

SI  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  §  25;   Outlines  of  Metaphysics,  §  4. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        707 

as  presenting  subjective  idealism  and  naive  realism  combined,  as  a 
vulgar  realist,  as  Kantian,  and  as  a  consistent  follower  of  Lotze. 

a)  Subjective  idealism. — This  is  the  estimate  of  Stahlin,  Steinbeck, 
Rub,  Wagener,  and  Luthardt.  Stahlin^^  disputes  Ritschl's  claim  to 
be  Lotzean.  For  (i)  Ritschl  makes  a  distinction  between  actual 
things  and  things-in-themselves.  (2)  Lotze  regards  phenomenon  as 
something  which  arises  directly  in  the  human  mind  and  is  purely- 
subjective.  Phenomena  are  the  product  of  our  minds  in  which 
things  do  not  present  themselves  as  they  are,  and  by  means  of  which 
no  knowledge  of  actual  things  is  given  us.  (3)  Ritschl  says  that 
things-in-themselves  are  unknown,  but  Lotze  does  not  regard  them 
as  absolutely  unknowable.  (4)  Space  with  Lotze  is  a  subjective 
intuition,  and  the  thing  which  we  cognize  in  the  phenomenon  given 
in  space  has  as  little  objective  reality  as  the  spatial  phenomenon  in 
which  it  is  cognized.  "The  thing  has  no  objective  reality."  After 
pointing  out  these  differences,  Stahlin  proceeds  to  show  the  contra- 
dictions and  inconsistencies  in  Ritschl's  own  position.  Inasmuch  as 
Steinbeck"  takes  identically  the  position  of  Stahlin,  and  seems  to 
have  followed  him  in  his  interpretation,  we  may  sum  up  the  position 
of  these  two  critics  as  follows:  (i)  Ritschl  contradicts  himself  in  the 
terms  "things-in-themselves"  and  "real  things."  They  are  not  the 
same;  for  the  former  are  unknowable,  the  latter  are  known.  But 
they  are  the  same ;  for  Ritschl  criticises  Kant  for  denying  knowledge 
of  "real  things,"  when  he  says  that  only  "things-in-themselves"  are 
unknowable.  (2)  Ritschl  defines  a  thing  as  a  purely  formal  concept 
without  content.  But  the  phenomena  are  real  only  as  the  thing 
appears  in  them.  This  leads  us  to  pure  subjectivity.  (3)  Or, 
phenomena  are  affections  of  sense.  They  are  subjective  states  of 
the  soul.  But  the  soul  is  a  thing,  and  the  thing  is  a  formal  concept. 
We  have  states  or  qualities  without  subject  or  object.  (4)  The 
thing-in-itself  is  a  memory-image.  It  has  no  objective  reality,  but 
the  phenomena  are  appearances  of  the  things-in-themselves;  they 
therefore  have  no  objective  reality.  They  are  shadows  of  shadows; 
they  are  appearances  of  memory-images.     "Phenomenon  has  no 

s*  Kant,  Lotze,  und  Ritschl. 

ss  Das  Verhaltniss  von  Theologie  und  Erkenntniss-Theorie  erorlert  an  den  theo- 
logischen  Erkenntniss-Tlteonen  von  A.  Ritschl  und  A.  Sabatter. 


7o8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

existence;  things  given  in  perception  as  unities  of  phenomena  have 
no  existence.  Things-in-themselves  are  empty  shadows."  StahHn 
draws  the  awful  consequence.  God  and  the  soul  go.  And  with  it 
falls  Ritschl's  whole  theology.  Steinbeck  thinks  that  Ritschl  never 
meant  to  land  in  such  subjectivity,  and  he  finds  several  passages 
which  show  conclusively  that  Ritschl  held  firmly  to  the  objective 
reality  of  God  and  things,  but  did  so  illogically.  Pure  subjectivity 
is  the  logical  issue  of  Ritschl's  principles. 

Wagener54  and  Rub^s  find  in  Ritschl's  statement  of  the  genesis  of 
the  concept  of  a  thing  subjectivity  of  the  Berkeleyan  type.  The 
phenomenal  world  is  the  real  world.  All  things  have  their  existence 
for  the  consciousness  in  which  they  are.  The  real  thing  is  a  formal 
concept.  The  thing-in-itself  is  a  necessity  of  thought.  This  is  not 
Kant's  position,  for  he  did  not  deny  things-in-themselves.  Ritschl 
teaches  solipsism.  In  Ritschl's  statement  of  the  origin  of  the  memor}^- 
image  Wagener  finds  his  explanation  of  the  origin  of  space.  But  the 
explanation  is  incorrect;  for  the  first  time  we  see  a  thing,  we  see  it 
in  space.  For  Ritschl  the  "projection  of  a  thing-in-itself  with  con- 
stant marks  is  the  same  thing  as  to  present  an  objective  space  in 
which  things  have  place."  The  philosopher  recognizes,  according  to 
Ritschl,  that  the  thing  in  space  arises  only  as  an  involuntary  abstrac- 
tion, as  the  projection  of  the  memory-image.  Time  has  its  origin  in 
the  same  manner.  Wagener  admits  that,  if  Ritschl  accepted  Lotze's 
ontology,  he  could  not  be  called  a  subjective  idealist,  and  he  quotes 
a  passage  from  Ritschl^^  which,  he  acknowledges,  can  be  interpreted 
as  showing  that  Ritschl  had  Lotze's  conception  of  God.  But  the 
relation  cannot  be  admitted,  since  in  that  case  a  Ritschlian  theologian 
would  need  to  be  a  Lotzean  philospher,  and,  moreover,  the  position 
of  Lotze  leans  toward  the  pantheism  of  Spinoza. 

b)  Subjective  idealism  and  naive  realism. — This  is  the  position  of 
Pfleiderer5  7  and  Pfenningsdorf.^^  In  Ritschl's  statement,  "We  know 
the  thing  in  its  appearances,"  Pfleiderer  thinks  the  problem  of  knowl- 
edge is  not  even  touched,  much  less  solved.     For  phenomena  are  the 

S4  Jahrbiicher  jiir  protestantische  Theologie,  1884,  pp.  194-227. 
ss  Die  Erkenntnisstheorie  von  R.  Lipsius  verglichen  mit  denjenigen  von  Brede- 
mann  und  Ritschl. 

s6  Christliche  Liebe,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  201.  57  See  reference  given. 

58  Dogmatisches  System  von  Lipsius  und  Ritschl. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        709 

images  of  things  presented  by  ourselves.  They  are  within  our  con- 
sciousness. But  the  thing  in  itself  cannot  be  this,  for  it  must  exist 
apart  from  any  representation  of  it.  Do,  then,  our  images  allow  us 
to  know  the  thing  in  itself  accurately,  or  only  inaccurately,  or  possibly 
not  at  all  ?  Ritschl  never  answers.  But  in  his  little  work  Ritschl 
informs  us  that  things  in  themselves  are  memory-images,  and  that 
real  things  are  the  products  of  our  representing  consciousness  (§  2, 
p.  44;  §4,  p.  64).  Ritschl  teaches  us  that  the  thing  is  a  formal 
concept.  Our  faculty  of  presentation  forms  it  through  fastening 
sensations  together,  and  we  think  it  as  being-for-itself,  in  analogy 
with  our  own  souls ;  but  there  is  nothing  existing  in  itself  which  actu- 
ally corresponds  with  this  idea  of  ours.  The  thing  is  a  formal  con- 
cept "  in  which  we  express  the  continuity  of  our  own  subjective  feeling 
of  self."  Ritschl  teaches  the  doctrine  of  subjective  idealism.  And 
this  doctrine  fails  to  explain  {a)  the  origin  of  sensation,  (6)  why  just 
these  qualities  and  not  others  are  united  in  the  concept  of  a  thing, 
{c)  why  others  experience  the  same  unities  as  I,  and  {d)  why  I  am 
justified  in  supposing  that  other  persons  beside  myself  exist  at  all. 
Subjective  idealism  always  leads  to  realism,  but  seldom  in  so  naive  a 
manner  as  in  Ritschl.  For  in  the  same  proposition  in  which  he  tells 
us  that  a  thing  is  a  product  of  the  faculty  of  presentation,  he  makes 
the  thing  at  the  same  time  the  cause  of  sensations.  Here  we  have 
in  one  sentence  subjective  idealism  and  naive  realism,  with  the 
contradiction  that  the  thing  is  at  the  same  time  both  cause  and 
product. 

Pfenningsdorf  finds  the  same  contradiction  as  Pfleiderer.  The 
thing  is  both  the  product  of  the  faculty  of  presentation  and  the  cause 
of  sensations,  and  no  "unbiased  reader"  can  deny  the  contradiction. 
Pfenningsdorf  claims  on  the  ground  of  Stahlin,  already  given,  that 
Ritschl  is  not  Lotzean.  Ritschl  considers  it  vulgar  and  unphilosophic 
thinking  to  conclude  from  phenomena  to  things-in-themselves,  but 
asserts  that  we  know  the  thing  in  its  appearance  as  the  cause  of  its 
qualities.  Here  he  would  seem  to  assert  existence  apart  from  sub- 
jective phenomena  as  real  being.  But  he  passes  over  to  define  a 
thing  as  purpose  and  as  a  law  of  change.  There  is  a  manifest  impos- 
sibility in  considering  the  thing  both  cause  and  purpose;  and  the 
subjectivity  of  Ritschl  is  made  manifest  when  the  thing  is  defined  as 


7IO  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

the  law  of  its  changing  marks,  since  the  thing  is  identified  with  the 
unity  of  its  phenomena. 

c)  Naive  realism. — Garvey,^^  Ludemann,*^"  Wendland,^'  and 
Haug  find  in  Ritschl  a  naive  realism.  Garvey  fails  to  find  Lotze's 
ontology  in  Ritschl.  Yet  the  latter  does  not  pass  into  subjective 
idealism,  as  Stahlin  affirms,  but  into  a  vulgar  realism.  Ritschl  is  no 
philosopher,  and  is  either  "ignorant  or  indifferent  to  the  problem  of 
knowledge  and  existence."  But  Stahlin  is  guilty  of  a  misinterpretation 
of  Ritschl,  when  he  says  that  for  him  the  thing  is  a  purely  formal 
concept.  The  temper  of  Stahlin's  book,  the  writer  thinks,  accounts 
for  this,  but  he  regrets  that  Professor  Orr  should  lend  "countenance 
to  this  misunderstanding."  In  addition  to  naive  realism,  Garvey 
finds  traces  of  Kant's  phenomenalism  in  Ritschl. 

Wendland  claims  that  Ritschl  held  fast  to  an  empiricism  according 
to  which  in  the  immediate  experience,  and  in  it  alone,  we  have  the 
certainty  of  the  reality  of  the  object.  The  object  is  given  immedi- 
ately in  perception,  and  there  is  no  place  for  conceptual  thinking. 

Ludemann  thinks  Ritschl  never  meant  to  deny  the  existence  of 
things.  He  affirms  that  things  exist,  and  that  we  know  them  in  them- 
selves when  we  know  them  as  they  are  for  us.  But,  in  opposition  to 
the  skepticism  of  the  senses,  Ritschl  seems  to  think  that  reality  is 
completely  given  in  sensation  and  perception,  and  there  is  no  place 
for  thought  in  the  construction  of  a  thing.  He  has  not  learned  the 
lesson  of  Kant's  analytic.  Ritschl  assumes  that  we  attain  immediate 
knowledge  of  a  thing.  A  knowledge  of  it  in  itself  is  given  in  our 
perceptions.  He  does  not  realize  that  there  may  be  illusions  and 
imperfections  that  must  be  eliminated  by  reflection.  In  this  he 
cannot  appeal  to  Lotze,  for  the  latter  never  held  that  through  sense- 
perception  one  could  attain  the  essence  of  a  thing. 

d)  Kantianism. — Several  of  Ritschl's  critics  think  that  he  has 
accepted  the  position  of  Kant.  Kiigelgen  and  Schoen^^  say  that  he 
is  nearer  Kant  than  Lotze.     Favre*^^  thinks  Ritschl  is  like  Kant  in 

59  Ritschlian  Theology. 

6°  Protestanlische  Monatshejte,  1897,  pp.  189-205. 

61  Albrecht  Ritschl  und  seine  Schiller. 

6'  Origines  historiques  de  la  theologie  de  Ritschl. 

63  Les  pHncipes  philosophiques  de  la  theologie  de  Ritschl. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  KITSCH L        711 

that  he  limits  knowledge  to  phenomena.  Otto  Ritschl^'*  says  his 
father's  position  is  virtually  Kantian,  and  he  agrees  with  Lotze  only 
where  the  latter  agrees  with  Kant,  Orr^^  fln^g  the  influence  of  Lotze 
over  Ritschl  to  be  marked,  yet  judges  that  his  theory  of  knowledge 
is  closer  to  that  of  Kant  than  to  that  of  Lotze.  Traub  finds  Ritschl's 
position  to  be  the  "geniune  Kantian."  For  theoretical  knowledge  all 
reality  is  included  in  the  world  of  phenomena,  and  it  is  the  task  of  the 
categories  to  arrange  the  manifold  of  appearances  in  a  unitary  manner. 
Ritschl  does  not  have,  like  Lotze,  a  world  of  metaphysical  realities, 
but  he  is  influenced  by  the  latter  in  his  conception  of  being.  Ritschl 
has  not  sharply  distinguished  between  the  question  of  the  genesis  of  a 
concept  and  that  of  its  validity.  When  Pfleiderer,  however,  asks  for 
the  origin  of  sensations,  he  is  asking  for  an  explanation  of  conscious- 
ness. But  this  is  an  impossible  demand.  We  cannot  go  behind 
consciousness.  The  category  of  causation  cannot  be  carried  beyond 
experience.  The  thing-in-itself  behind  phenomena  is  only  a  limiting 
concept.  Our  sole  criterion  of  reality,  in  the  theoretical  reason,  is 
whether  or  not  a  given  concept  can  be  articulated  in  the  causal  series. 
When  one  asks  if  this  world  of  the  theoretical  reason  has  real  existence, 
then  one  passes  over  from  the  standpoint  of  the  pure  reason  to  that 
of  the  practical  reason.  The  feeling,  willing  self  finds  those  things 
to  have  real  existence  which  excite  feelings  of  pleasure  or  pain,  and 
which  advance  or  hinder  the  purposes  of  the  will. 

e)  Lotzeanism. — Ritschl  himself  tells  us  that  he  accepts  the 
Lotzean  theory  of  knowledge,  and  expounds  and  defends  it  in  his 
pamphlet.  His  statement  is  entitled  to  as  much  consideration  as 
the  judgment  of  any  critic  or  disciple.  His  statement  ought  to  be 
accepted  until  facts  compel  us  to  reject  it.  Ecke^^  decides  that 
Ritschl's  position  is  that  of  Lotze.  When  Ritschl  says  that  "one 
knows  a  thing  first  in  its  qualities,  in  its  effects  on  our  perceptions  of 
another  thing;"  that  ''the  marks  are  appearing  effects  of  a  cause;" 
that  "the  thing  is  cause  in  its  effects;"  that  "sensations  are  caused 
by  the  thing;"  that  "there  are  causes  which  lead  the  soul  and  affect 
it  as  stimuli,  etc.;"  and  when  he  chides  Kant  because  he  limits 
knowledge  to  phenomena,  he  can  be  understood  only  to  affirm  the 

64  Lehen  A.  Ritschls,  Vol.  II.  65  The  Ritschlian  Theology. 

^6  Theologische  Schule  Ritschls,  pp.  46-51. 


712  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

existence  and  knowledge  of  real  things.  Ecke  tells  us  that  Thikotter 
conversed  with  Ritschl  in  regard  to  his  theory  of  knowledge,  and 
that  Ritschl  admitted  his  agreement  with  Lotze  in  ontology,  and 
thought  that  by  limiting  his  agreement  to  that  section  of  his  meta- 
physics he  escaped  the  necessary  consequences  of  Lotze's  whole 
metaphysics.  Swing^'  finds  Ritschl  in  agreement  with  Lotze,  and 
he  interprets  the  latter  to  affirm  a  knowledge  of  reality.  Mielke^^ 
passes  the  same  judgment.  Fliigel^^  finds  in  Ritschl's  theology  the 
dangerous  pantheistic  tendencies  of  Lotze's  metaphysics.  Ritschl's 
definition  of  a  thing  contains  a  nest  of  metaphysical  inconsistencies. 
" Do  things  have  a  purpose  in  their  effects ?"  "How  do  we  know  a 
thing  is  cause  of  its  marks  ?  Do  we  know  it,  or  infer  it  ?"  What  is 
his  meaning  when  he  says  the  thing  is  the  law  of  the  change  of  its 
qualities  ?  There  is  no  real  being,  but  we  name  the  law  of  constant 
change,  being.  The  thing  as  law  of  change  cannot,  then,  be  the  cause 
of  change.  Ritschl  has  the  monistic-pantheistic  metaphysics  of 
Lotze.  For  he  says:  "One  must  think  the  world  as  unity  in  order 
to  explain  the  reciprocal  action  of  things.  But  in  this  sense  is  the 
substance  of  the  world  more  significant  in  the  conception  of  a  uni- 
versal law  than  in  that  of  cause  ?"  Fliigel  regards  this  as  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  reasoning  of  Lotze  by  which  the  latter  concludes 
to  a  unitary  world-substance. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  the  wide  divergence  of  opinion  among  the 
critics  of  Ritschl.  Some  find  the  position  which  Ritschl  takes  in  his 
larger  work  to  contradict  that  in  the  smaller.  Others  find  his  teach- 
ing in  both  works  to  be  consistent,  but  reject  his  position  entirely. 
Some  object  to  his  solipsism,  others  fear  his  pantheism.  His  thing 
is  a  formal  concept,  and  it  is  a  naive  realism.  He  has  no  place  for 
conceptual  thought,  and  he  is  a  genuine  Kantian.  Why  all  this 
difference  of  opinion  ?  The  standpoint  of  the  individual  critic  answers 
in  part.  The  speculative  and  pantheistic  Pfleiderer  misses  that 
respect  for  the  intellect  that  he  desires.  The  Herbartian  Fliigel 
thinks  that  prominence  is  not  given  to  the  independent  real;  and 
the   dogmatic   theologian   misses   the   element   of  supematuralism ; 

67  Tlie  Theology  0}  Albrecht  Ritschl. 

68  Gottfried  Mielke,  Das  System  Albrecht  Ritschl's  dargestellt,  nicht  kritisirt. 

69  See  his  A.  Ritschl's  philosophische  und  theologische  Ansichten,  pp.  9,  10. 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        713 

while  the  sympathetic  Traub,  both  a  Kantian  and  a  Ritschlian, 
wishes  his  two  masters  to  live  in  harmony.  The  standpoint  of  the 
man  means  more  in  a  question  of  theology  or  philosophy  than  in  one 
of  mathematics  or  science.  And  the  peculiar  position  of  Ritschl  to 
all  other  theological  parties  renders  him  susceptible  to  criticism  from 
every-quarter. 

But  the  theological  and  philosophical  standpoints  of  the  individual 
critics  cannot  entirely  account  for  the  wide  difference  of  opinion. 
Ritschl's  own  statements  are  unclear  and  inexact.  His  Theologie 
und  Metaphysik  is  a  polemic,  and  was  produced  in  the  heat  of  con- 
troversy. It  is  an  answer  to  objections,  and  is  not  meant  to  give  an 
adequate  treatment  of  epistemological  problems.  Statements  are 
made  which  perhaps  under  other  conditions  would  be  modified  or 
suffer  a  change  of  emphasis.  Moreover,  he  means  it,  he  tells  us, 
to  be  an  abbreviated  statement  of  Lotze's  general  position,  and  he 
tacitly  assumes  that  his  opponents  are  familiar  with  the  latter.  There 
are  certain  passages  in  Ritschl  which,  if  isolated,  suggest  every  inter- 
pretation given.  But  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  whole  contro- 
versy, and  with  the  background  of  the  philosophic  thought  of  his  age, 
and  especially  that  of  Lotze,  they  can  all  be  reconciled.  His  critics 
have  made  the  mistake  of  criticising  his  position  before  they  gave 
him  sympathetic  interpretation.  His  position  may  be  untenable,  but 
the  first  necessity,  even  to  overthrow  him,  is  a  sympathetic  interpre- 
tation. And  this  demands  that  one  put  himself  in  the  position  of 
the  author,  and  view  matters  from  his  standpoint  and  in  the  light  of 
his  purpose.     Ritschl's  critics  have  failed  to  do  this. 

If  we  bring  under  consideration  the  criticisms  of  Ritschl  which 
have  just  been  presented,  we  have  to  deny  the  difference  between 
Lotze  and  Ritschl  that  Pfenningsdorf  and  Stahlin  indicate.  Ritschl 
does  not  differentiate  things-in-themselves  and  real  things.  His  posi- 
tion here  is  that  of  Lotze.  There  is  an  ambiguity  in  the  term  "  things- 
in-themselves."  The  scholastic  "things-in-themselves"  are  not  real 
things,  but  the  precipitate  of  memory-images.  But  when  things-in- 
themselves  are  correctly  conceived,  they  are  real  things.  Or,  if  one 
would  make  a  difference  at  all,  that  difference  would  correspond  to 
the  difference  between  partial  and  perfect  knowledge.  Things-in- 
themselves  are  things  in  relation.     We  know  them  as  they  are  related 


714  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

to  us.  A  perfect  knowledge  would  know  all  their  relations.  Again, 
it  is  incorrect  to  say  that  for  Lotze  phenomena  give  no  knowledge  of 
reality.  There  are  passages  in  his  system,  and  especially  in  his 
Logic,  which  would  seem  to  lead  to  this  conclusion;  but  his  thought, 
taken  as  a  whole,  teaches  that  appearance  is  a  knowledge  of  reality. 
Moreover,  Lotze  criticises  Kant,  because  the  latter  teaches  what  is 
here  imputed  to  him.  When  Stahlin  says  that  Lotze  held  that  things- 
in-themselves  are  not  absolutely  unknowable,  he  is  correct;  but  this 
is  precisely  the  position  of  Ritschl.  Stahlin's  criticism  shows  that 
here  he  fails  completely  to  understand  Ritschl.  For  the  whole  point 
of  the  latter  is  an  attack  upon  a  "scholastic  interpretation  of  a  thing." 
Stahlin  is  correct  when  he  afhrms  that  for  Lotze  space  is  a  form  of 
perception,  and  this  is  also  Ritschl's  position,  and  he  reveals  it  clearly 
in  his  discussion  of  the  personality  of  God.  But  when  Stahlin  con- 
cludes that  on  that  account  the  thing  has  no  objective  reality,  he 
shows  a  lack  of  clear  philosophic  knowledge.  What  is  meant  by 
objectivity  ?  Any  presentation  in  consciousness  has  a  certain  objec- 
tivity; or  objectivity  may  mean  universality,  or  that  which  exists  in 
space  and  time.  Even  for  Kant  objects  have  as  much  objective 
reality  as  the  empirical  self;  for  both  are  included  in  consciousness. 
For  Lotze  an  objective  reality  has  an  existence  for  self.  The  thing 
has  precisely  the  same  "objective  reality  as  the  self."  Neither  is  in 
space;  but  space  is  the  form  in  which  things  appear  to  us,  and  this 
appearance  conveys  real  information  of  the  behavior  of  things.  The 
same  criticism  may  be  urged  against  the  term  ausser  uns  as  used  by 
Steinbeck.  Does  it  mean  an  object  in  space,  or  a  Kantian  thing-in- 
itself  ? 

We  have  already  pointed  out  that  when  Ritschl  calls  a  "thing-in- 
itself"  a  memory-image,  it  is  the  scholastic  conception  of  a  thing 
that  he  has  in  mind.  This  failure  of  interpretation  renders  much  of 
the  criticism  against  Ritschl  absolutely  worthless.  Ritschl  never 
says,  as  Pfenningsdorf  claims,  that  it  is  a  mistake  of  the  vulgar  to 
conclude  from  phenomena  to  things-in-themselves.  The  mistake  of 
the  vulgar  is  that  they  conclude  to  the  scholastic  thing-in-itself,  to  a 
substance  behind  and  supporting  qualities.  Ritschl  teaches  us  that, 
if  we  form  a  correct  conception  of  the  thing,  we  shall  be  led  to  Lotze's 
view,  and  affirms  that  the  "cause  is  known  in  its  effects."     It  is  a 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  RITSCHL        715 

pure  piece  of  imagination  on  the  part  of  Wagener,  when  he  makes  the 
memory-image  Ritschl's  explanation  for  the  genesis  of  space  and 
time.  Ritschl  tells  us  that  he  wishes  to  account  for  the  scholastic 
view  that  we  know  things  apart  from  their  activity.  So  far  as  Ritschl 
reflects  his  psychological  position,  he  is  in  harmony  with  Lotze,  and 
no  doubt  would  accept  his  explanation  of  the  origin  of  space  and 
time. 

When  Pfenningsdorf  and  Fliigel  criticise  Ritschl's  doctrine  of  the 
thing,  they  ought  to  interpret  him  in  the  light  of  the  fuller  exposition 
of  Lotze.  When  one  conceives  cause  as  Lotze  does,  there  is  no  con- 
tradiction in  saying  that  the  thing  is  both  cause  and  purpose.  For 
the  self  can  be  both  cause  and  purpose.  When  we  limit  the  term 
"law,"  as  Lotze  does,  and  keep  in  mind  the  methodological  character 
of  our  concepts,  the  thing,  when  defined  as  law,  is  not  reduced  to  a 
mere  formal  concept.  Fliigel  as  a  realist  raises  the  old  question  of 
the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  whole.  Lotze  denies  mere 
becoming,  with  which  Fliigel  charges  him.  Lotze  denies  the  doctrine 
of  independent  reals,  and  it  is  his  merit  to  have  pointed  out  the  insur- 
mountable difficulties  in  this  doctrine.  But  no  one  will  claim  that 
Lotze  gave  a  final  solution  to  the  problem  of  individuality  in  its  rela- 
tion to  the  whole.  When  Fliigel  asks  if  the  thing  then  is  uncaused, 
he  should  remember  that  Lotze  forbids  us  to  ask  after  the  cause  of 
experience.     Our  task  is  not  to  create  the  world,  but  to  understand  it. 

The  criticism  of  Pfleiderer  loses  its  force  when  we  remember  that 
Ritschl  accepted  Lotze's  idea  of  the  thing  and  of  its  relation  to  the 
self,  and  denied  the  position  of  Kant.  If  you  define  phenomena  and 
conceive  things-in-themselves  as  Kant  did,  then  it  is  impossible  to 
say  that  we  know  "the  thing  in  its  appearance."  Even  Ritschl 
might  see  that.  But  Lotze  denies  this  position  of  Kant.  Robins^° 
says  for  Lotze  this  involves  (i)  a  false  and  abstract  distinction  between 
form  and  matter;  (2)  the  view  that  appearance  only  is  known,  at 
least  directly;  (3)  the  dogma  that,  if  reality  is  knowable,  it  can  be 
known  only  indirectly  by  the  mediation  of  appearance  which  must 
be  the  identical  copy  or  likeness  of  reality;  (4)  the  traditional  dualism 
which  Kant  accepted  between  subject  and  object.  One  might  reject 
Lotze's  position,  but  it  is  hardly  fair  to  him  to  say  that  he  has  not 

7°  See  his  Lotze's  Theory  0}  Knowledge,  p.  34. 


7l6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

"touched  the  problem  of  knowledge;"  and  if  Ritschl  indicates  and 
accepts  Lotze's  position  because  he  does  not  restate  it  in  full,  he 
ought  not  to  be  open  to  this  charge.  Neither  should  Garvey  say 
that  he  is  "no  philosopher."  Ritschl  impresses  the  diligent  student 
of  his  work  with  the  fact  that  occasionally  he  did  a  bit  of  philosophic 
thinking. 

A  true  interpretation  of  Ritschl  shows  the  superficial  and  unfair 
nature  of  the  criticisms  of  Stahlin  and  Steinbeck.  For  the  thing-in- 
itself  is  not  a  memory-image,  but  is  a  soul-like  entity.  A  thing  is 
not  a  phenomenon  of  consciousness.  The  concept  of  a  thing  in  our 
consciousness  is  our  knowledge  of  a  thing.  It  is  the  nature  of  knowl- 
edge to  be  knowledge  of  something.  While  the  concept  of  a  thing  is 
subjective,  it  gives  us  information  of  a  transubjective  reality.  Knowl- 
edge is  a  product  of  experience,  but  it  conveys  information  of  things 
which  are  causes  of  experience.  The  thing  is  not  both  cause  and 
product  of  experience,  as  Pfleiderer  affirms,  but  the  thing  is  the  cause 
of  the  concept  of  a  thing,  which  is  a  product  of  the  experience  of  the 
self.  Ritschl  never  defines  a  thing  as  a  purely  formal  concept.  That, 
as  Garvey  correctly  points  out,  is  just  his  criticism  of  Frank's  imper- 
fect concept  of  a  thing. 

If  the  position  of  Ritschl  is  that  of  Lotze,  he  can  scarcely  be 
charged  with  naive  realism.  He  agrees  with  Lotze  that  the  individual 
alone  is  real,  but  it  is  by  reflection  that  he  passes  on  from  the  elemen- 
tary to  the  consistent  concept  of  a  thing.  There  are  isolated  passages 
where  he  tells  us  that  sensation  is  our  only  warrant  for  affirming  that 
things  exist,  and  Lotze  says  the  same.  The  common  man  does  seek 
to  exclude  errors  by  repeated  observation  and  by  comparing  his  con- 
ceptions with  others.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  scientific  method  of  obser- 
vation and  experiment,  and  involves  reflection,  and  is  the  basis  of 
further  reflection.  Ritschl  does  not  exclude  conceptual  thinking. 
He  is  not  a  Hegelian,  but  is  by  no  means  a  mere  empiricist. 

Our  aim  has  been  to  interpret  Ritschl,  and  it  is  not  our  task  to 
give  a  full  and  critical  appreciation  of  his  position.  Criticism  might 
better  be  directed  to  the  fuller  and  clearer  statement  of  Lotze;  for  it 
is  only  in  the  light  of  the  garment  of  Lotze  that  the  shreds  and  patches 
of  Ritschl  can  be  put  together.  The  philosophic  thought  of  today 
is  scarcely  able  to  accept  this  doctrine  of  ontology.     Schiller's  criti- 


METAPHYSICAL  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OF  KITSCH L        717 

cism''  seems  to  the  writer  to  be  just.  To  accept  the  world  as  given, 
and  to  recognize  that  we  cannot  go  behind  experience,  is  to  accept  the 
world  in  which  things  are  in  interaction.  Lotze's  concept  of  the 
absolute  does  not  explain  change.  We  do  not  know  why  there 
should  be  change  in  the  absolute.  If  the  interaction  of  things  neces- 
sitates a  change  in  the  absolute  to  restore  equilibrium,  there  seems  to 
be  no  place  for  freedom.  When  Lotze  assumes  freedom,  he  does  it 
at  the  expense  of  the  absolute. 

From  the  standpoint  of  modern  psychology  and  logic,  Lotze's 
position  may  be  criticised.  Jones'^  has  done  this  in  his  philosophy 
of  Lotze.  What  is  the  relation  between  sensation  and  conception  ? 
At  one  time  all  is  given  in  sensation,  and  thought  has  merely  to  do 
over  the  work  of  sensation.  At  another  time  thought  has  a  bare 
multiplicity  given,  and  it  must  combine  the  elements.  Lotze  has  a 
"  psychic  mechanism,"  which  takes  the  place  of  Kant's  "  imagination," 
and  mediates  between  sense  and  understanding.  In  places,  at  least, 
he  implies  that  a  datum  is  given,  and  that  we  can  have  a  subjective 
consciousness  before  we  have  an  objective  consciousness,  so  that 
thought  has  "to  objectify  the  subjective."  Ritschl  seems  to  show, 
in  his  brief  statement,  the  same  mistake.  As  a  psychological  analysis 
his  formation  of  a  concept  is  not  correct.  He  seems  to  assume  that 
sensations  are  given.  But  sensations  are  an  abstraction.  They  are 
an  abstraction  of  the  psychologist  just  as  atoms  are  of  the  physicist. 
It  is  an  undifferentiated  experience  which  is  immediately  given,  and 
from  which,  for  logical  purposes,  both  universals  and  particulars  are 
abstracted.  We  must  remember,  of  course,  the  methodological 
character  of  Lotze's  concepts.  It  is  probably  true  that  Lotze  held 
that  there  was  a  cognitive  element  in  every  sensation,  and  it  is  in  this 
light  that  we  have  interpreted  him. 

From  the  epistemological  point  of  view,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
an  idea  is  not  a  copy  of  reality,  and  yet  is  valid  of,  and  gives  informa- 
tion concerning,  reality.'^  Lotze  can  hardly  escape  the  copy-theory 
which  he  rejects.     We  are  certain,  by  immediate  intuition  or  by 

71  "Lotze's  Monism,"  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  pp.  225-45. 

72  Henry  Jones,  The  Philosophy  of  Lotze's  Doctrine  of  Thought;  see  also  trenchant 
criticism  by  Dewey,  in  Studies  in  Logical  Theory. 

73  See  John  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  pp.  54  ff. 


7i8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

direct  sensation,  that  we  have  a  knowledge  of  reality.     If  this  is 
true,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  much  room  for  thought.''* 

Things  are  made  of  such  stuff  as  thoughts  are.  They  are  thought- 
constructs  and  represent  modes  of  action.  Thought  itself  arises  in 
experience  when  a  habit  is  broken,  to  form  a  new  method  or  habit 
of  action.  From  the  intellectual  point  of  view,  the  thing  is  a  concept ; 
from  the  practical,  it  is  a  more  or  less  fixed  mode  of  action.  Traub 
is  correct  when  he  says  that  the  reality  of  a  thing  is  determined  by 
our  feeling- willing  nature;  but  he  fails  to  realize  that  thought  in  the 
service  of  the  will  forms  the  concept  as  a  means  of  action.  There 
is  but  one  test  to  the  reality  of  a  thing,  and  that  test  is  its  function. 

74  See  discussions  on  epistemology  in  the  Philosophical  Review,  by  Seth,  Rogers, 
Tufts,  and  MacLennan. 


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